Grimmerie: A Stumble in the Dark
by wickedmetalviking1990
Summary: There's more to the Grimmerie than just a spell-book. When people start disappearing all over Oz, the Wicked Witch of the West is immediately blamed. But Glinda knows the truth. Can she save her friend and lover before she is lost...forever? Gelphie
1. What Glinda Saw

**(AN: Welcome, fellow Ozians, to a new fan-fic about _Wicked_. In keeping with my established statements, this is musical-verse. It is also something of an experiment, both in genre-wise and in pairing. It is Gelphie, my first honest-to-Oz Gelphie fic that is 100% _Wicked_.)**

**(You may notice lines that are similar, almost verbatim from "On My Own" from _A Musician's Fan-Fiction_. My explanation is that I enjoyed writing that explication of the Throne Room/Attic scene so much that I borrowed from my own work, I hope you can forgive me. Furthermore, the POV will shift occasionally, but Glinda is the main character [the Dutch seem to think so, as shown by their promo-posters. After all, she 'outlives' her friends, overthrows the Wizard and Madam Morrible and has 'the torch' of Elphaba's duty passed down to her, so to speak. So yeah, placing Fraulein Janzen in front of the other two actors is allowable...though not preferable]).**

**(Okay, now enjoy this little prologue)**

* * *

><p><strong>What Glinda Saw<strong>

The little old man who appeared from out of the rear of the Great Head could not have been taller than she was. How old he might have been was anyone's guess - between fifty and sixty-six. He looked well enough, it seemed, for he moved briskly enough: therefore he was not that old.

"Oh, I hope I didn't startle you!" he called out, removing a pair of goggles from over his eyes. "It's so hard to make out peoples' faces when I'm back there." He seemed happy enough.

But why was Glinda so shocked, especially after the fearful presence of the Great Head?

The old man - was he really the Wizard? - removed the gloves that were on his hands, and placed a pair of clear spectacles over his eyes. He looked like he could have been a professor at Shiz.

"Now, let's see," he said, scrutinizing the two young women. "Which is which?" His laugh broke the silence that filled the Throne Room. "Ah, you must be Elphaba!" He pointed to the tall, thin green woman at Glinda's side. Elphaba was practically beaming. Glinda knew how much this meant for her.

"A pleasure, a genuine pleasure!" the old man greeted warmly, wrapping his old, wrinkled hands around Elphaba's thin, clever green ones. Glinda could almost feel the electricity that was generated from where Elphaba stood.

"And you are?" he asked her, as if she was an after-thought. But that didn't matter much, as long as the Wizard noticed her. That was all she wanted.

"Glinda Upland," she said, curtsying before the Wizard while she held his hand. "The 'ga' is silent."

But he wasn't paying attention to her. He was now looking at Elphaba, who was marvelling at the Great Head.

"A bit much, isn't it?" The Wizard asked her. "I know, I know! It is, it really is. But people expect this kind of thing from a guy like me, and you have to give people what they want. Truth be told, you two are the first people to visit me in a long while: I don't let many people see me very often."

"I'm so honored, Your Ozness!" Elphaba said. She was practically beaming. "I can't tell you how happy I am to be here."

"Well, that's good!" he exclaimed. "Because that's what I love to do: making people happy." From somewhere in the darkness beyond the lights, the sounds of an orchestra filled their ears. The Wizard then began to sing something of a little song that, they expected, he had arranged for their arrival.

_I am a sentimental man _  
><em>Who always longed to be a father <em>  
><em>That's why I do the best I can <em>  
><em>To treat each citizen of Oz as son - or daughter<em>

The Wizard then walked over to Elphaba and took her by the hand, leading her up before the giant head, singing directly to her.

_And Elphaba, I'd like to raise you high _  
><em>'Cuz I think everyone deserves the chance to fly <em>  
><em>And helping you with your ascent <em>  
><em>Allows me to feel so parental <em>  
><em>For I am a sentimental man<em>

Glinda had never seen Elphaba happier in her entire life.

"Was that too much?" the Wizard queried. "It's true, I-I can't help it. I'm a real sucker for helping people. I guess that's why I'm so wonderful, to them at least."

"Oh, Your Ozness!" Elphaba practically gushed. "I'm so glad to hear you say such things. You see, I..." Elphaba waved Glinda over, who eagerly joined her hand in hand, beaming at the Wizard. "We are not just here for ourselves."

"_We're not?_" She gasped.

"No!" Elphaba whispered to her, then turned back to the Wizard. "We're here to tell you that something bad is happening to the Animals in..."

"Please!" the Wizard held out his hands. "Say no more, say no more! I'm the Wonderful Wizard of Oz! I already know why you've come here!"

The two girls 'ooh'd' at this statement.

"And I have every intention of granting your request," the Wizard continued. "But, uh, of course, you must prove yourself."

"Oh! Certainly, certainly!" Glinda nodded. Were they prepared for magic? Oz knows she wasn't. She turned to Elphaba. "Go on, show yourself!" She practically pushed her toward the Wizard while she took a step back.

"But, how?" Elphaba asked, turned towards the Wizard. Now she was surely afraid of letting him down. Who wouldn't be fearful of letting down the most powerful man in Oz?

In answer to Elphaba's question, the Wizard turned around and called for "The book!" To their surprise and, somewhat, alarm, the sight of the giant fish-faced Head Shiz-tress floated into the room, bedecked in green robes and just as cod-like as they had remembered her. In her arms was a large book, with a weather-beaten hard cover of leather.

"I believe you all know Madam Morrible," the Wizard stated. "Head Mistress of your school and, uh, my new Press Secretary."

"'Press Secretary?'" Elphaba repeated with awe.

"Yes," Madam Morrible said proudly, maybe even a little smugly. "Yes, dearies, I've risen up in the world!" She pointed up dramatically with one of her bejeweled fingers. "If you stay here, you'll find that the Wizard is a very generous man: if you do little for him, he'll do much for you." She then turned to Elphaba. "Now, then, I took the liberty of informing His Ozness about your talents when I wrote to him, and he asked that you prove yourself when you came into his presence."

"But, how?" Elphaba asked.

The Wizard turned around and blew on a silver whistle. Immediately, a very odd-looking Monkey pranced out of the darkness. Glinda gasped, but Elphaba seemed immediately taken by this cute little thing. She 'aw'd' and scratched the scruff beneath the monkey's chin, and he chattered loudly. This done, he walked over before the Wizard and sat down.

"This is Chistery," the Wizard announced. "He's my monkey servant, one of the finest. But lately he's grown rather moody, watching the birds all day with longing. Naturally, I expected that he wanted to be with them..."

"And so," Madam Morrible said, presenting the book. "His Ozness suggested that you prove yourself by casting a simple..._levitation spell._"

They looked in awe at the book in Madam Morrible's hands.

"Is...is that what I think it is?" Glinda whispered.

"Yes, dearie!" Madam Morrible proudly annoucned. "The Grimmerie: the ancient book of thalmaturgy and enchantments."

"Can I touch it?" Glinda gasped, her tiny, manicured hand reaching out to touch the hard, well-worn leather.

"No!" Madam Morrible mockingly answered, pulling the book away from her reach and presenting it to Elphaba. Glinda seemed quite forgotten as Elphaba was pouring over the pages of the book. Glinda thought she saw a hint of violet and silver flashing up from the pages, but she dismissed that as silly. Books weren't made that way...

At least the books she had seen.

"Don't be discouraged," Madam Morrible assured Elphaba. "If you can't decipherate it right off. I've spent years studying that old book and can only read a spell or two."

Glinda wondered just how many years Madam Morrible meant. She always looked like a cod-fish in a powdered wig with heavy make-up, but it wasn't until just now that Glinda noticed just how old she really looked. A fearful thought fell upon Glinda's mind when she feared that, eventually, she would look that way also.

No! she wailed inside. Oz forbid! I'd rather die than look like a fish. Oh, if only there were a spell in that book that Elphaba was going over that could make her eternally young.

Just then, Glinda's thoughts were disturbed by the sound of Elphaba chanting, slowly at first, and haltingly, but increasing slowly and with more fervor.

_Ahben Tahkay Ahben Tahkay Ahben Atum Ahben Takayah Entayah Ah Entayah Tifentah Ahben Tahkay!_

"Yes!" the Wizard exclaimed. Now he was beaming! "Look at her go! Chistery!" He walked over to the monkey, who flinched slightly. "What an experience you're about to have!" The Wizard looked out and waved his hand, the orchestra striking up again.

_Since once I saw my own name in the sky _  
><em>I think everyone deserves the chance to...<em>

But before he could finish, Chistery gave out a blood-curdling cry of agony. His little hands reached up at his back, pawing at his shoulder-blades as if to rid them of some evil that was causing him great pain.

"What's happening to him?" Elphaba gasped.

"No need to worry, dearie!" Madam Morrible said. "Just part of the transition!"

"Chistery, what's wrong?" Elphaba asked the writhing monkey, but all that he could do was screech. She then turned back to Madam Morrible. "What's wrong with him? Why can he speak?"

Before Madam Morrible could answer, a pair of blue, bat-like wings exploded from out of Chistery's back.

"Glorious!" the Wizard exclaimed.

"What an impressive wing-span!" Madam Morrible exclaimed.

"You did it, Elphie!" Galinda cheered on from where she stood with the others. "You really did it!"

Elphaba, however, was everything but jubilant. She was looking at Chistery, noticing that he was still pawing at the roots of the wings and making screeching noises.

"No!" she gasped. "He's in pain!" She turned back to the book in a hurry, skimming over the pages. "Quick! How can I reverse it?"

"You can't!" Madam Morrible exclaimed. "Spells can't be reversed once they're cast!" She then turned back to the Wizard. "I told you she had it in her! I told you!"

"Alright, alright!" the Wizard said. "I admit, you were right."

Elphaba halted, if only externally. Her heart was racing inside of her.

"You knew?" she asked. "You knew this would happen and you let me do it anyway?"

"But you'll benefit from this also, dearie." Madam Morrible said. The Wizard was slowly backing away, both hands behind his back. He gave a look at something behind the curtain that sat behind the Great Head and exclaimed joyously:

"And look! This is just the beginning!"

He pulled a lever and the curtain swung back, revealing a large cage filled with monkeys. They were all chattering, screaming out in pain, with wings sprouting from their backs. Glinda was shocked by how many they were, and took a step back to gaze in wonder at them. She heard, from behind, Elphaba gasping. Was she okay? She had seem something happen, that moment when she turned to the Wizard after reading the spell. Her face looked different...

Or maybe it was just Glinda's imagination getting the better of her.

"Why the long face?" the Wizard asked Elphaba. "If this is what you can accomplish on your first try," He pointed to the monkeys. "Well, then, the sky is the limit!"

"This is perfect, Your Ozness!" Madam Morrible exclaimed. "What fine spies they will make!"

"'Spies?'" Elphaba echoed.

"You're right!" the Wizard said, pointing to Elphaba. "That's a harsh word. How about 'scouts?' I mean, that's what they'll really be, after all. They'll just fly around Oz and report on any subversive...uh, Animal activity."

"What?" Elphaba gasped. "You-You mean...it's you? All those cages in Oz, Animals being forbidden to hold jobs of importance, shoved back into the fields, into slavery, into_ silence_...it's all you?"

"Elphaba, please try to understand!" the Wizard said, walking over to her left-side. "When I first got here, there were all sorts of disorder and fear. Back where I come from, the best way to bring folks together is to give them a really good enemy."

Glinda could not imagine what was going on inside Elphaba's head. She knew how much Animals meant to Elphaba (more than Dr. Dillamond meant to Fiyero, apparently, since he didn't really care about her changing her name in honor of how the old Goat pronounced it), and to have the one she admired the most, the one she nigh revered, turn out to be her worst enemy, how could she bear not breaking down into tears on the spot?

But she didn't, she was breathing so fiercely, it sounded like she was seething.

"You have no real power, do you?" she breathed, pointing to the Wizard.

"You're absolutely right," he smiled. "That's why I need you. Don't you see, Elphaba? The world's your oyster now! You have so much potential!" Suddenly he cast his eyes toward her, towards rich, ambitious little Glinda. "You both do!"

"Oh, thank you, Your Ozness!" she smiled, walking over to his side. Elphaba could be upset if she wanted to be, but Glinda knew that she had a future of her own, her own dreams to make, and the Wizard could help those come true.

He held out his hand, and the orchestra struck up again. He then turned back to Glinda, his hand out-stretched and open. She accepted it without question or hesitation.

_The two of you, in time, I'll raise you high _  
><em>Yes! The time has come for you to have the chance to...<em>

He held the note, turning to Elphaba, his hand outstretched, asking for her to do the same. Surely she would, surely Elphaba would make the smart decision. It would all be alright in the end, wouldn't it?

A burning desire came over Glinda to see Elphaba's face. All she saw now was her body, she was standing, erect maybe, with the heavy book in both of her hands, looking at the Wizard's hand. By reason, perhaps, of the lights in this room, her wide-brimmed hat - the one she, Glinda, had given her - obscured her face.

Glinda's heart was racing. What was taking Elphaba so long?

"**_NO!_**" Elphaba shouted. She took off like a shot, running somewhere, anywhere. A half-way open doorway - the one Madam Morrible had come out of - loomed fearfully at the corner of the room. Elphaba ran straight towards it.

"Elphaba!" Madam cod-face called out sternly.

"Elphie, wait!" Glinda cried out. Oh, why do I always have to find myself stuck in the middle of these things? She was shaking in her little jeweled heels. Responsibility was suddenly thrust upon her little shoulders.

What do I do?

"I'm sorry, Your Wizardness!" she turned, both hands out in an expression of abject apology. "I'll get her back." She then turned toward the door, screaming "Elphie!" as she ran after her as fast as her high-heels could carry her.

She ran through the doorway, finding three other halls that connected to this one. One went around the length of the building, while another went straight towards what looked like an old office. The other one arched upward, into a stair-case that went upward.

Up those stairs the sounds of boots pounding upon wooden steps could be loudly heard. There was no time to take her shoes off, or she might lose Elphaba. Glinda groaned in frustration, then set off to running up the stairs after Elphaba, no matter what.

Suddenly, below her, feet, a roar echoed from what Glinda could only imagine was the Throne Room.

"**_GUARDS! GUARDS! THERE IS A FUGITIVE AT LARGE IN THE PALACE! FIND HER, CAPTURE HER, BRING HER TO ME!_**"

She had to get her back before the Wizard's guards found her first.

Before they were both found.

"Elphie, stop!" she called out.

But Elphaba wasn't stopping. She pushed the door at the top of the stairs open with the surprising momentum of her thin body. Glinda, huffing and panting, walked in behind her and found herself in a dry, dusty room. A domed ceiling was just above her head, glowing faintly green. There were also no more doors, no more stairs: no way out.

"Elphie, listen to me..." she sighed. The sounds of boots coming from downstairs snapped Elphaba to attention.

"They're coming up the stairs!" she nervously mused to herself. "I have to barricade the door!"

"What?" Glinda exclaimed. "Elphie, wait!"

Elphaba was now up and about, looking around this Oz-forsaken attic, panting heavily. There was nothing that looked useful even in the slightest. The sound of boots pounding upon the wooden stair-steps were getting closer.

"Ah!" she exclaimed. Sitting by a box of ratty old clothing there was an old broom - the kind that had bristles of straw tied about a handle of real wood. This she grabbed and took over to the door, jamming it under the latch. It would not hold for long.

"Elphaba Thropp!" Glinda shouted, gasping for breath. "Why couldn't you have stayed calm for once, instead of flying off the handle?"

_I hope you're happy! _  
><em>I hope you're happy now <em>  
><em>I hope you're happy how you've <em>  
><em>Hurt your cause forever <em>  
><em>I hope you think you're clever!<em>

Elphaba turned on her, and Glinda almost jumped back, seeing the fierce, angry look in the green woman's brown eyes.

_Well, I hope _you're_ happy! _  
><em>I hope you're happy, too <em>  
><em>I hope you're proud how you <em>  
><em>Would <em>grovel_ in submission _  
><em>To <em>feed_ your own ambition!_

**_So, though I can't imagine how _**  
><strong><em>I hope you're happy...right...now<em>**

The two looked the other way, trying to pretend that they were angry at each other. Glinda was more frightened than mad. The guards would soon be at the door, and the broom would not hold them for long. Once they were in, it would not be long when they were brought back before the Wizard in chains. But even here, trapped in this Oz-forsaken attic, Glinda did not feel safe. She had seen Elphaba's face for a brief moment, and it shocked her how angry her friend was, so angry, so vehement, so fierce...

So unnatural.

Like when they spoke in unison. Were the situation any lighter, she would have been blushing with embarrassment. According to Gilikinese tradition, if a couple spoke in unison or finished each other's sentences, that meant that their minds already worked as one and therefore were meant for each other. But the only exception for that rule had been twins, whose minds usually were linked.

But she had just spoken in unison with Elphaba, another woman. How was that possible? It was not proper for a woman to take a liking to another woman, that was not the way things were done in high society Gilikin, and Glinda was definitely such. But tradition had spoken, she and Elphaba were meant for each other.

But why in Oz's name did her face look so sharp, so venomous, so...unnatural?

"_Citizens of Oz!_" the voice of cod-faced Madam Morrible called out, most likely magically enhanced. Her voice was menacing and threatening, filled with great malice. Glinda was covered in chills of fear.

"_There is an enemy who must be found and captured!_" the Wizard's press secretary shouted. "_Believe nothing she says: she's evil! Responsible for the mutilation of those poor, innocent monkeys!_"

"Oh no!" Glinda whined. Somehow, in the dark of that room, her hand found its way into Elphaba's. She thought that the angry green girl would throw it aside. Instead, it closed around her little pale hand in a tight, warm grip.

"_Her green skin is but an outward manifestorium of her inward, _twisted_ nature!_" Madam Morrible continued, her voice rising with rage. "_This...distortion! This...repulsion! This...**WICKED WITCH!**_"

Glinda's ears were still ringing with the roar of Madam Morrible's denouncement. Her blood ran cold, and suddenly this attic seemed very strange and unwelcoming. The old floor-boards, creaking beneath their weight, seemed to be counting down the moments until this darkness would be lifted, until they would be prisoners. Hope seemed as distant to poor Glinda as her home in the Upper Uplands of Gilikin right now.

"Don't be afraid!" she whined, her hand squeezing the green fingers she held onto as if for her very life.

"I'm not," the green woman returned, with determination in her voice. "It's the Wizard who should be afraid...of me!"

"Elphie, listen to me!" Glinda reasoned, pawing at Elphaba's shoulder. "Just say you're sorry, before it's too late. You'll see..."

_You can still be with the Wizard _  
><em>What you've worked and waited for <em>  
><em>You can have all you ever wanted<em>

"I know," the green woman returned. "But I don't want it..."

"Elphie..."

"No!"

_I can't want it - anymore_

Glinda stood rooted, while Elphaba walked off by herself, speaking some words that she did not exactly understand. The little blond needed some time to think, to get her thoughts straight. It must be a mistake, tradition did not apply for when two women spoke the same thing at the same time, did it?

She found the green woman rather pretty, in her own, vain manner. Perhaps it was desire for the world to see the beauty that she saw that she gave Elphaba the make-over that night after the Oz-Dust ball, what seemed like a lifetime ago.

Elphaba's voice was now raising. She was saying something about defying gravity. What was she thinking? Had she gone mad? Glinda walked over to her, grabbing the green woman by her bony shoulders, and turning her around to face her.

_Can't I make you understand?_  
><em>You're having delusions of grandeur!<em>

But Elphaba would have none of it. She brushed her off and walked over to the other side of the room, not even giving Glinda once glance.

_I'm through accepting limits_  
><em>'Cuz someone says they're so<em>  
><em>Some things I cannot change<em>  
><em>But 'till I try, I'll never know<em>

_Too long I've been afraid of_  
><em>Losing love, I guess I've lost<em>  
><em>Well, if that's love it comes<em>  
><em>At much to high a cost<em>

Glinda was pacing behind her, wondering what this could mean, while Elphaba went on, oblivious to what the little blond was thinking, what she was feeling. Suddenly, reality came knocking - or pounding, more like. The guards were at the door, banging on it with their fists.

"Open this door in the name of his Supreme Ozness!" the captain of the Gale Force shouted.

But Elphaba was back on the floor, the Grimmerie open and chanting frantically, her hands dancing over the pages.

_Ahben Tahkay Ah Tum Entay Ditum Entayah_

"Elphie, wh-what are you doing?" Glinda asked. Suddenly a new thought came into her tiny mind. She had always seen Elphaba as beautiful, especially with her green skin. But now, just a few moments ago, she had seen her face, and how it looked - it gave her frights and shakes all over.

_Ahben Tahkay Ah Tum Entay Ditum Entayah_

Glinda came to a startling conclusion. She had never seen Elphaba's face look so...unnatural, not before...

"That's what started this in the first place, that hideous levitation spell!"

_Ahben Tahkay Ah Tum Entay Ditum Entayah_

Just the thought of what might happen.

"**_STOP!_**" Glinda screamed, throwing her hands over her face.

Silence. Even the guards had ceased their assault on the door.

"It's stuck, sir!" one shouted.

"Bash it in!" the captain ordered. "You three, go back and fetch the battering rammican!"

"Yes sir!"

The sound of foot-steps echoing down the hall was all the noise that was heard

With hands trembling, Glinda peeked out from between her fingers, afraid of what she might see. All that was there was the black-clad and hatted form of Elphaba, crouched over the Grimmerie...

"Well?" Glinda asked, her hands falling from her face. "Where are your wings?" Nowhere. "Maybe you're not as powerful as you think you are."

Suddenly, there was a sound of rushing wind. Glinda saw something small and brown flying up close to the ceiling.

"Oh, sweet Oz!" she gasped.

"I told you, Glinda!" Elphaba shouted, her hands shaking as she looked after the small flying thing. "Ha! Didn't I tell you?"

_Tell me what?_ she thought. Elphaba hadn't said anything about escaping, or that she could via the Grimmerie.

The broom now floated down and rested in Elphaba's green hands, which she leveld down like a spear.

"Quick!" she said, turning to Glinda. "Get on!"

"What?" the blond queried, taking a step back. The face that looked back at her from beneath the black hat looked nothing like the Elphaba Thropp she knew and loved. _Do I really _love_ her?_ The face was definitely similar, but it looked more...savage.

Something bad was happening to Elphaba right beneath her nose.

"Come with me!" the green girl begged. "Think of what we could do, together!"

_Unlimited  
>Together, we're unlimited<br>Together, we'll be the greatest team that's ever been_  
><em>Glinda, dreams, the way we planned them<em>

_If we work in tandem?_ she queried, placing a hand on the broom.

_There's no fight we cannot win  
><em>

_Just you and I, Defying Gravity  
>With you and I, Defying Gravity<em>

"They'll never bring us down!" Elphaba exclaimed.

Glinda had taken a step back. She noticed that it had happened again. Doubt filled her mind, doubt about Gilikinese tradition, about how she had been raised, about whether she really wanted to go with Elphaba and do...whatever it was that she wanted to do.

"Well, are you coming?" Elphaba asked, as she knelt down over the Grimmerie. Glinda wanted to shout, to cry, to say something. But something held her back, the part of her old personality, the old way of doing things - _Galinda_ - who did not want to go with Elphaba. _Let her run off and do whatever she wants to_, that part reasoned. _If she wants that end, then let her have it. I want to marry Fiyero and become popular, famous even!_

She didn't want to listen to it, because it was so...cruel. But she was afraid, afraid of what might happen, afraid of what was _already_ happening. And that seemed to fit hand in hand with what her 'old self' was trying to convince her to do.

Stay behind.

"Oh, Elphie," she sighed sorrowfully. "You're trembling." She looked around, trying to think of something. _If I'm going to betray my friend, _she thought_, I might as well be nice about it._

_But you're not betraying your friend_, the other thought said. _You're making your own way in life. _She's _the one who's being unfair, asking you to give up your dreams to follow after her._

She didn't listen to it, for now she walked over to a pile of dirty old clothing. A thick black cloak caught her eyes. She picked it up, shook off the thick layer of dust that clung to the fabric, and draped the cloak over Elphaba's shoulders.

_I hope you're happy  
>Now that you're choosing this<em>

She half-expected Elphaba to be angry, to say that she knew that she would turn on her when push came to shove. After all, she was still Galinda at heart.

_You too_, was all the green woman said.

_I hope it brings you bliss_

They were now together again, hand in hand. It didn't matter to Glinda that Elphaba's face looked different, that there was an unsettling look in her brown eyes (or did they look a little orange now?). Deep down inside was the same woman, the same one that she had chosen to stand up for that night at the OzDust ball.

_I really hope you get it  
>And you don't live to regret it<em>

They were now speaking in unison again. Glinda's little heart was pounding fiercely against her rib-cage. She noticed how close she was to Elphaba, so close...

_I hope you're happy in the end  
>I hope you're happy...<em>

A moment of silence as they were caught in each other's eyes.

_...my friend._

And it was gone, as surely as Elphaba had vanished into the shadows. The guards came back in and Glinda found herself being dragged away, did they think she was the Witch? She screamed and struggled, but another had saved her. A blur of black and green shot out of the attic, soaring up into the sky, knocking the guards down on their backs. Glinda looked up with longing at the little black speck, vanishing as it went higher and higher into the Ozian stratosphere. Were they really just friends? Why, then, did she feel so much more? They were linked at the mind, it seemed, for they spoke in unison. Why not at the heart?

Glinda looked about, and whimpered in fear as she noticed something that made her blood run cold...

Elphaba had taken the Grimmerie with her.

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: More questions than answers here, definitely. But that's what these stories are all about!)<strong>

**(The whole 'Gilikinese tradition' is something I stated in _A Musician's Fan-Fiction_, which I reuse here in this story. It's part of the Gelphie thing.)**

**(I will plan to see this story to fulfillment, so just wait...I don't know when I'll be able, what with my laptop dying once again, but I will try to update as soon as possible.)**


	2. Tradition

**(AN: Sorry if you've not been that into _A Stumble in the Dark_ so far. I'm bringing out more of this story today, with some characters from the _Oz_-series and _Wicked_ years re-imagined for the sake of this story. It will all be good, don't worry.)**

**(A side note. I feel that my stories have lacked from views because of the serious nature of them, or of my inability to present a new, solid story. In response to the first part, I would say that Glinda, one of the main characters of this tale, is definitely more of a focal point than Elphaba. I could have loved _Wicked_ the musical even if Elphaba was really dead. Because at the end, you see their two souls become one and Glinda now is the strong one who has the responsibility of saving the Animals. Therefore, my Glinda, even musical-verse, is more "serious" [well, as serious as Glinda can be. lol] and not just comedic relief. Such is the case in this story. I hope you multitude of Glinda fans can enjoy it.)**

* * *

><p><strong>Tradition<strong>

She was no longer just Glinda Upland. Now she was a somebody. In the few days that had passed since Elphaba had disappeared, her little blond friend had suddenly been adopted into a position of power in the Emerald City. She was now a public relations representative, and a major spokes-woman and advocate for the rule of the Wizard.

Nobody really seemed to care about what _she_ thought or felt. The Wizard was secretive as usual, and any orders or requests from him came through the fish-faced Madam Morrible. It was like living in captivity, a prison with no bars or locks, just restraints and obligations that hedged her way.

Deep inside, she felt terrible. She knew she had betrayed Elphaba by not going with her. Even worse, she had sensed something even worse about that book Elphaba had taken with it. If she could be there with her, she could do something, she could...

_What could I _really_ do,_ she thought.

But the thoughts she had mused upon in the attic still rang true with her. Was it possible that two women could be soul-mates, even though it was against the 'usual' protocol of the day? She had to find out, and she knew of no other source better able to tell her about Gilikin tradition than...

"Jelly?" she called out to the little maid servant, Jellia Jamb. She must be no more than a mere girl, not even fifteen. 'Jelly' was the nickname Glinda had given her: her own little 'galindafication'.

"Yes, Your Goodness?" the wee girl, clad in a green dress with the huge, oogling green glasses sitting atop her cute button nose. "You called for me?"

"I did, Jelly," Glinda returned. "I would like you to deliver a message to Madam Secretary." She saw 'Jelly' wince at the mention of that name. Well, she couldn't blame her. 'Fishy Face' was always so scarifying.

Glinda reached into her cabinet and removed the sealed green letter. Everything in the Emerald City was green, Glinda had come to realize. A jarring, forceful shade of green.

Not like _her_.

Wee 'Jelly' nodded, then dashed out the door on her errand. Glinda paced about the room, waiting for her message to get through. She had everything in here, everything she could ever hope for. The young, silly Galinda had almost died from lack of air after squealing for so long when, in the past few days, she was lavished upon like nothing before.

But these thoughts also came with a twinge of regret. If the Wizard wanted to buy her silence, he knew just the price. And she knew that she was susceptible as well, and it made her feel rotten inside.

The doors of her apartment opened and the cod-faced Press Secretary to the Wizard entered.

"My dear!" she exclaimed with all the sickly-sweetness of poisoned honey. "Miss Jamb delivered your letter to me." She held it up. "You're requesting permission to return to your home in the Uplands?"

"Yes, madam." Glinda said.

"May I ask why?"

"What?"

"Why you wish to go there." she added. "After all, with the Witch at large, we can never be too careful, dearie."

"Oh, right." Glinda didn't like hearing people refer to _her_ as 'the Witch.' It was just a first step, she knew, for them to call her _other_ things, worse things.

"Well, madam," she continued. "As the spokes-woman for the Wizard, I have the duty to tour the country-side, bring hope and the promise of good things to our loyal servants, do I not?"

"Quite right," Madam Morrible pointed. She mused for a while. "Oh, I don't think a few days' absence will be _that_ detrimentiary." She turned to glide her way back across the room to the door, then halted and turned around. "Miss Upland?"

"Mhm?"

"I wouldn't try anything foolish, if I were you, dearie," she admonished. "These are desperate times, and it would be a _great_ loss to the people of Oz if something should happen to their beloved Glinda!" She smiled, a stark contrast to her former, threatening statement, then walked out the door.

Glinda breathed a sigh of relief. It took all her nerve to keep herself together in the presence of the one _she_ had nicknamed 'Horrible Morrible.'

_She_. The euphemism she used instead of 'the Witch.' It wasn't to ease into calling her worse things, as they did. Times _were_ as desperate as Madam Morrible had stated, and if people found out that she was actually _friends_ with 'the Witch'...

She had to use that euphemism. It was the only way to keep safe.

_No more thinking_, she thought to herself. _I've got to pack_.

* * *

><p>The Upper Uplands were still very nomadic and untamed lands of Gilikin, but mostly because of the distance from Gilikin's capital city: Shiz. What was 'officially' called the Upper Uplands was a half-moon circle of land as far west as the Pertha Hills and as far east as the end of the Great Gilikin Railway that terminated in the middle of the Great Gilikin Forest.<p>

To Glinda Upland, it was home.

Her request finally went through, and she found herself sitting on the next carriage-ride back to Gilikin. It had been so long since she had been back there, she wondered if she would even recognize it anymore.

Several days passed while her carriage took her through the rolling, forested country of Gilikin. She kept to herself, trying not to think of the cold. Sweet Oz, was it _really_ this cold up north? She had been away from the Upper Uplands for so long, she had almost forgotten what it had been like to be up in the roof of Oz.

Finally, there came a knock on the cab of her carriage.

"Miss Upland?" the driver said. "We're here."

She stepped outside of the carriage and found herself looking up at the white-walled mansion that had been her home. It was as beautiful and splendiforous as she had remembered it. A wave of happiness fell down upon her as she saw her familiar home looking back at her, like nothing had changed.

It may not have changed, but Glinda had definitely changed. For one, she was no longer Galinda, the silly little spoiled rich kid who wanted nothing more to be a real-life fairy princess, just like Lurline.

She did not bother with waiting for the servants to announce her. Picking up her skirts (she was wearing a long-skirted green dress), she ran through the doors of the house and immediately passed through the parlor, where her parents were enjoying afternoon tea.

"Momsy!" she cried out. "Popsicle!"

Gaylette and Quelala Upland were surprised to see their only daughter running through the house, an expression of extreme happiness on her face.

"Galinda!" Gaylette exclaimed, a smile upon her face. "Oh, my little princess!" Glinda wrapped her arms around her mother, trying hard not to break out into tears.

"Honey, we're so glad to hear from you!" Quelala said, wrapping his daughter in a warm embrace. "We thought you'd forgotten all about us."

"Oh, don't say that, Popsy-poops!" she laughed.

"Galinda," Gaylette said, with a good-natured yet restrained smile. "I know you have your little pet-names for us, but we've got to draw a line somewhere. You're the heiress to the Arduenna Clan, and sooner or later, you've got to grow up."

"Momsy, you know I don't want to grow up!" Glinda pouted. She then hugged her mother again and laughed.

"Oh, I have so much to tell you all!" she said.

* * *

><p>They were in the parlor of the Upland mansion. The servants were busy taking Glinda's things back to her room, while she enjoyed tea with her family. Purple-mint tea was Glinda's favorite, heavily laced with sugar, of course.<p>

"Glinda," Gaylette said, with a little bit of a strain. "You named yourself after the Saint of the Shale Shallows?"

"Yes."

"And for a boy?" she returned.

"But Fifi..." she paused. "Fiyero, I mean: he's not just any boy." _Or _is_ he_, she wondered.

"Glinda," she continued. "You are an heiress of the Upland family, the head of the Arduenna Clan. You can't allow yourself to be controlled by anyone else!"

"Oh, come off it, dear!" Quelala shrugged. "She's allowed to be in love, isn't she?"

"This isn't love," Gaylette returned. _It _can't _be true, I _do_ love Fifi..._

But what about Elphaba?

"You must return to the Emerald City," Gaylette stated. "Immediately."

"But she just got back!"

"With the Wizard's support," she said. "The Arduenna Clan will rise to new heights we've never even _dreamed_ about! We will be the envy of all Gilikin!"

"Oh, come on, Letta! You can't expect Glinda to be..."

"You're too soft on her, Quela!"

"And _you're_ too hard on her!"

"I'm still here!" Glinda announced loudly. They did not turn to look at her, just sitting there, drinking their tea in silence.

"I've got to check on the servants." Gaylette said, gracefully rising from her place and walking out of the room.

"Your mother is a good person," Quelala stated to his daughter. "But she has other things on her mind all the time. Of course, though, your best interests are always at heart."

Glinda nodded.

"So, honey," he continued. "Tell me, how are things going on at school?"

"Oh, just lovely." Glinda smiled. "I have some of the bestest friends in all of Oz. There's Fifi, who I've told you all about. He's so handsome, and we've spoken together at the same time, just like tradition says we should!"

"Oh, go ask your mother about tradition," he dismissed. "I've never been that good with all of Gilikin tradition. Sometimes I think they add new rules and regulations with every minuscary tick of the Time Dragon Clock."

Glinda laughed.

"I told you about Dr. Dillamond," she said. "He was the one who called me 'Glinda.' Madam Morrible, the Head Shiz-tress, she looks like a fish!" He laughed. There could be no more lying, not to her parents.

"Then there's Elphaba," she stated.

"A fellow student?"

"My room-mate." Glinda began. "She didn't have a room, and I volunteered to be her room-mate." She left out 'by accident', or that she didn't like her to begin with. "She's so smart, always taking notes, reading books, spends most of her time in the library."

"Does she have any friends other than you?"

"Not really," Glinda shook her head, sadly. "She's green."

"You mean she's new? Inexperienced?"

"No, I mean she's _really_ green! As green as the Emerald City!" Glinda exclaimed.

"By Oz!" he exclaimed. "A green girl? What will they think of next!"

"Oh, she was born that way."

Quelala nodded.

"But there's something else," she said. "Uh...I'm not sure how to put this."

"Just saying the truth would be okay."

"She's a little cold, at least on the outside, but she's got a nice side. And it doesn't matter whether she has green skin or not, she's..." She sighed. "...she's pretty."

He nodded again.

"We've spoken as one," she said. "If I remember all those lessons correctly, that means our thoughts are bound." She gulped. "That usually applies to lovers."

"Tradition can be bent in peculiar conditions," Gaylette said. "There are usually safe-guards and clauses when these sorts of things happen."

"That's not what _you_'ve always said." Quelala returned. "You've said that tradition is precisely that, unbreakable, unbendable, unwavering tradition!"

"But two women can't be soul-mates!" she exclaimed. "It's just not done!"

"Why not?" Glinda asked, her chest heaving.

"Think of the shame you'll bring upon our family!" Gaylette exclaimed. "That the daughter of Gaylette Upland, the princess-heir of the Arduenna Clan, is a-a..." She choked back the last words. She didn't want to say it.

"A woman-loving freak!"

Glinda suddenly felt very distant from her mother. She had always loved her, but knew that she was stern on her. While her father lavished her with presents and his attention, her mother was different. She insisted that she choose wealthy friends, ones who could be of influence to her.

But this?

"But why not?" Quelala asked. "I mean, if our souls are different than our bodies, then soul-mates are not bound by physical restrictions or cultural ignorance."

"That's ridiculous! I won't have it! I forbid you to ever see this...this..._Elphaba_ creature, ever again!"

"You don't have to listen to her, Glinda, dear! You're old enough, you can decide for yourself!"

"Quelala, shut up!"

"You can't control her forever, dear!"

"And _you_ can't give her everything she asks for whenever she wants it!"

"She's old enough to..."

"She's _my_ daughter!" she turned to Glinda, who looked rather dejected on the edge of their conversation, tears streaming down her face.

"Oh, don't cry," she said, not sounding very convincing. "You'll ruin your mascara, and _then_ where will you be?"

Having said her peace, Gaylette walked out of the room. Quelala slowly got up off his chair and gave his daughter his handkerchief from out of his coat-pocket.

"Thanks, Popsicle." she sniffled meekly. She dabbed at her eyes and gently rubbed the lines that were streaming down her face.

"I can't bear to see my little princess cry." he said earnestly.

She threw her arms around her father, and he patted her golden locks gently.

"There, there," he whispered. "Everything will be alright."

_At least Popsicle still loves me_, Glinda thought as they remained in each other's arms. But her thoughts drifted once more to their conversation. It was so odd, that her father's flexibility and open-mindedness would encourage her to uphold the tradition and go with whoever her heart decided, whereas her strict, rule-abiding mother demanded that tradition be bent for this situation.

But she was old enough, this she knew. Momsy and Popsicle weren't with her that evening at the Oz-Dust ballroom, when she and Elphaba danced together for the first time and became friends (that alone had enough statements in Gilikinese tradition to make her head spin). They were also not there at the attic, when she parted with Elphaba. Whatever would happen next, in regards to her and Elphaba, would be _Glinda's_ choice.

The attic. That brought back all the memories, turning her blood cold.

_Whether Momsy says so or not_, she finalized. _I'm leaving as soon as possible._

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: We finally get to see Glinda's parents!)<strong>

**(Their names come from two Gilikin characters from _The Wonderful Wizard of Oz_, who were part of the Flying Monkeys' 'back-story'. Since _Wicked_ has its own back-story for the monkeys, I made them Glinda's parents.)**

**(Tell me what you think of them. Neither of them are genuinely good parents [but neither are Frex and Melena - he shows hatred and favoritism and she's a little skank], but the lesser of two evils would have to be Quelala, since he thinks about his daughter's happiness more than his own, as Gaylette does.)**

**(I know, you didn't like that rip on Melena, but it's true. She's morally bankrupt in the book [just like everyone else], and totally unfaithful...I don't think wiping off Frex's kiss after he leaves counts as a sign of fidelity. [even Katherine Howard never did anything that obviously callous!])**

**(In case you haven't noticed, this is Gelphie pairing [_Life and Times of a Jedi Outcast_ doesn't count, since that is more story-based than relationship-based]. It will explicate a lot of my personal philosophications regarding their pairing. You might just enjoy it, so don't leave...:D)**


	3. Crossing Bridges

**(AN: It's going to be a few chapters or so until Elphaba shows up. After all, this is mostly Glinda's story. I think I've still got some more of her doing her thinking on her and Elphaba to be written. [how have I done so far?]. lol, the second Throne Room scene is going to be different in this story!)**

**(Once again, I apologize for how I write my characters. Finishing up Margaret George's _Mary, called Magdalene_ and I'm surprised that she can depict both men and women perfectly. I, on the other hand, depict my female characters as just male characters with the ability to reproduce [some may call that 'unfair' or 'forcing them to conform to male standards', but I would like to believe that it's actually just treating them equally. See? Maybe equality isn't what you _really _want, just dominance.)**

**(Enough ranting, here's the new chapter...there will probably be an abridged version of _Thank Goodness_, from Glinda's perspective, based on the title of this chapter...maybe)**

* * *

><p><strong>Crossing Bridges<strong>

That night, Glinda told the servants to pack her things back up again. She would be on her way back to the Emerald City. Her mother did not want her anymore, not if she were going to be loving Elphaba, if only from a distance.

Elphaba. Merely thinking about her brought on a sea of memories from that afternoon in the attic. She hadn't seen anything of her since then. Not so much as a word. But she remembered the green face, how lovely it was! She paused in her packing, just enjoying the memory of her face was enough to take her breath away.

At midnight, her things were finally together. _I can sleep in the carriage-ride on the way back_, she told herself. Careful to not make any noise, she tip-toed outside of the mansion and into the carriage. She plopped onto the seat inside and told the driver to take off.

_One last look won't hurt_, she said. She looked back at the mansion, pondering her years there. It seemed so pure, so pretty, just like she was said to be - yet it held such bad things inside. _Perhaps people who are pretty on the outside aren't always pretty on the inside,_ she mused. The opposite was definitely true with Elphaba: people who are not pretty on the outside are sometimes pretty on the inside.

Elphaba. How could she not think of anything else but that green fugitive?

A light was on in the house. She saw the figure of her father standing by the lighted window.

_Dear Popsicle!_

* * *

><p>Glinda was in her room, applying her make-up. She had a cadre of servants to do that, but even now, as the Wizard's Ambassador of Goodness, she still felt that she could do her own make-up better than anyone else could. Her father had bought her a make-up kit when she was three and she had become skilled at every fashionable Gilikinese design at the age of seven.<p>

_Dear Oz, where has all the time gone,_ she asked herself. Three years had passed, since she had gone from just being a student at Shiz to the face of Oz, their protector and encouragess. She was still young, marriageable, but had her hands full, going from place to place all around Oz and telling the people that, despite the rumors, everything was just fine and goodness was on the side of their Wizard.

The rumors. She had heard every single one of them. It was said that something evil was haunting the wild outback of the Vinkus. Not a great evil, like a usurper or a group of bandits, but a quiet evil: one that parents spoke of in hushed tones and warned their children about through stories and fables. Those who were unlucky enough to be caught out of doors after dark would sometimes never be seen again...

_That can't be Elphie_, she thought. _She's good, she would never intentionally hurt someone._

Unless, of course, they were hurting Animals, she concluded. What about the Animals? Had she forgotten about them? There were always rumors of groups of rebel Animals - terrorists, Madam Morrible called them - who committed all sorts of havoc. From defacing crops in Munchkinland to destroying the Yellow Brick Road: but so far, there hadn't been many reports of casualties.

At least, ones caused by these Animal groups.

"Miss Glinda?"

She turned from her vanity and saw the wee Jellia Jamb, standing there with a look on her face like she had just seen a ghost.

"Jelly, what's wrong?"

"Madam Secretary wants to meet with you," she said. "In the Throne Room. She says its important."

Glinda smiled. Fishy-faced Madam Morrible could curdle new milk with that face of hers.

"It's okay, Jelly. Cod-face won't hurt you."

Maybe I shouldn't say such things. After all, they have eyes and ears everywhere. Even Jelly could be a spy - not a malicious one, but one coerced through fear and intimidation?

"Why don't you take the rest of the day off?"

"Really?"

"Why not? I think you've earned."

"Oh, thank you, Your Goodness!"

She curtseyed and walked out of the room. Glinda rose to her feet and followed suit.

Only she did not leave the Palace all-together, she went down the hall that she had only gone down once before - almost three years ago.

The Throne Room seemed empty. She could not even see the Giant Head. Where was the Wizard? Didn't he stay here always, keeping himself hidden? Why did Madam Morrible want to meet me here, instead of at her office?

Speak of the Kumbric Witch!

"Glinda, dear!" the fish-faced Press Secretary said, gliding out of the shadows, arms outstretched in a sign that usually meant welcome.

It seemed threatening, coming from her.

"You're no doubt wonderating why I asked you to join me here," Morrible said.

Glinda nodded.

"Well, His Ozness has a gift for you - one that he wished to give to you in person and that requires both of us to be present."

"What is it?"

"If I knew what it is, do you really think I would tell you?" She spoke tensely, her face set against Glinda. She then giggled, and smiled. "It would ruin the surprise!"

"Oh, right."

"Right this way."

She led Glinda toward the center of the Throne Room, where a few lights were trained on a long object covered with a heavy sheet. There was some movement from underneath the fabric. Were those monkeys kept here? It was quite odd that Elphaba did not rescue them when she first escaped. Maybe she was not thinking clearly at that moment.

"Your Ozness!" Morrible said to the sheet. "She's here!"

The sound of metal things falling about and clanking, followed by a groan of pain, could be heard muffled beneath the heavy sheet. Half a minute later, the little old man appeared out from under the sheet, goggles over his eyes and gloves on his hands.

"Ah!" he said. "Glinda, dear! I trust you've been well."

"Very well, Your Ozness!" she curtseyed. It seemed silly to do that to someone who wasn't really as great and powerful as he claimed to be.

The Wizard was now in full view, the light gleaming off his gray jacket and the sheet. It was green, like everything here in the Emerald City. Golden letters were sewn into the fabric: she could only make out part of them: an O and a Z.

"I'm sure you've noticed," the Wizard continued. "The recent Animal activity. They've attacked the Road again."

"An outrage!" Madam Morrible exclaimed, throwing her hand dramatically over her chest.

"It's not safe to go out and about in Oz anymore," the Wizard said. "At least by horse or by carriage."

"The rails should be safe." Glinda suggested.

"For now," he said. "But you never know what might happen. They could attack the railway next."

"Truer words could not have been spoken, Your Ozness!"

The phrase 'butt-kissing toady' flounced through Glinda's brain as she saw Madam Morrible practically eating up every word the Wizard was saying.

"But the most important thing, for the people of Oz," he said, turning to Glinda. "Is to keep you going across the land, spreading the good news. So we can't have you being held up by these acts of terrorism."

"Never! Let them see that the Wizard will not be daunted by these vile actions!"

"And, with that in mind," the Wizard indicated to the giant sheet. "I have created a little bit of an invention for you to use, Glinda, on your missions to the provinces." He stepped back and turned to Madam Morrible. "Would you do the honors, Madam?"

She bowed low and expansively, then turned to the sheet. She waved her hand, there was a rush of wind, and the sheet was blown away as if it were a leaf.

A giant circular machine sat there against a table.

"Uh, what is it?" Glinda asked.

"It's a transport!" the Wizard exclaimed. "It's designed to be carried by bubble power!"

Glinda almost laughed. Was this for real?

"Not just any ol' bubbles, magic bubbles!" he held out his hands, waving his fingers dramatically. "Madam Morrible cooked 'em up this morning!"

"Observe!" the Wizard walked over to the machine and sat on a small platform that stood at the bottom of it. He clicked a button, and there was a rush of air. Bubbles began appearing around the spinning platforms of the giant circular machine, lifting it slowly up above the floor.

"Nice, isn't it?" he called out to Glinda from the top of the Throne Room. "No need to worry about long commutes now! You can zip from here to Munchkinland in only an hour or so!"

"It's, uh..." she gasped. "It's all so...wonderful!"

The Wizard brought the bubble-ship back down to the floor and stepped out onto solid ground.

"Which brings me to another thing," the Wizard said. "It's been a while, dear. It's time you were married."

She gasped. What if I don't want to be married?

"It'll bring the people together nice and good like!" he exclaimed. "Nothing makes folks happier than a wedding! We-We'll have a ball right here in the Palace! I'll have Madam Morrible send out invitations all throughout Oz! It'll be such a whoop-dee-doo!"

What's a whoop-dee-doo? she asked herself.

"Uh," she stammered. "Uh, who will I be marrying?"

"Who else? Your boyfriend from Shiz!"

She gulped. Fiyero had come to the Emerald City mere days after the incident, asked for an audience with the Wizard and promptly volunteered to bring the Witch - no, to bring Elphaba: I must always call her by her right name - to justice.

"He's our public hero," the Wizard said. "Captain of the Gale Force, leading the hunt against the Witch: you're the Ambassador of Goodness: you're perfect for each other!"

Well, at least it won't be somebody I don't like, she thought. Her mother had originally aligned for her to marry a Lord Nicolas Chuffrey, an invalid who was also one of the richest barons in Midland Gilikin.

"I'll go tell him." she nodded.

"No, please!" he walked, or ran, over to her side, waving his hands. "I'd rather it be a surprise. It will be just wonderful! I'll arrange for a public appearance, the two of you, and your engagement will be announced to the whole city!"

She smiled. She was practically gaga over Fiyero. He was perfect.

He was perfect. But ever since they first met, they hadn't shared thoughts like they had before anymore. It was now all with Elphaba.

Fiyero or Elphaba? He's the one I've fantasized about ever since I started liking boys - maybe not him exactly, but the perfect man, my charming prince. And we deserve each other, after all. It would be perfect, right? But Elphaba, she was an outcast, an outlaw, an outsider...and green!

But she knew Glinda better than Fiyero did. When they were together, when they talked, even when it was not in unison, she realized that Elphaba really did know her...perhaps a little more than she wanted to admit in herself.

But who do I really want?

* * *

><p>It was all so grand. She wore a pale-green dress, with a cute little white hat sitting precariously on her blond hair, done up in imitation of a bee-hive. Fiyero looked dashing in his uniform, and even the voluminous green dress that Madam Morrible wore took the eyes off her hideously fishy appearance. Everyone was in green, and it was green that was on the topic of every conversation.<p>

The green witch.

The orange-whiskered Guard of the Palace pounded his pike-staff on the floor of the little podium as the three of them mounted the platform. Glinda rose up her hands, so that everyone would see her.

"Fellow Ozians," she announced, remembering her speech by heart. "As terrifying as terror is, let us _please_ put aside our panic for this _one_ day..." She managed a smile as she squealed.

"And celebrate!"

Cheers rose from those gathered around the podium.

_Oh, what a celebration we'll have_ today!  
><strong>Thank Goodness!<strong>_  
>Let's have a celebration the <em>Glinda way!  
><strong>Thank Goodness!<strong>

"Finally, a day that's totally Wicked Witch free!" Madam Morrible exclaimed.

_We couldn't be happier  
>Thank Goodness!<em>

"And thank Goodness for you, Glinda!" the fish-faced Press Secretary exclaimed, indicating to Glinda. She smiled sheepishly in return. "And..." Morrible turned to Fiyero. "...for your handsome suave, our Captain of the Guard! I understand you've been at the forefront of the hunt for the Wicked Witch, correct?"

"Well, I, uh, don't actually see her as a 'wicked witch.'" Fiyero returned.

_What is he thinking_ Glinda wondered. _Oh wait, no, he doesn't think. So what is he _saying? _That kind of talk is dangerous, especially in front of Madam Morrible!_

"Tell me, Prince Tiggular," she continued, apparently oblivious to what he had just said. "How does it feel?"

"Quite frustrating, actually." he said, stepping up to the microphone stand that stood before Glinda. "But I became Captain of the Guard to find her, and I won't rest until..."

"No, no, no!" Madam Morrible waved his eloquentiary speech aside. "I mean, being engaged!"

A small 'huh?' escaped Fiyero's lips, soon drowned out by a congradulatory exclamation. Behind them, a large banner was unfurled, the Gilikinese word '_Congradulotions_' written across the banner in green letters.

"Uh, Glinda," he whispered to her. "Is this an engagement party?"

"Surprised?" she returned, showing the ring upon her finger to him.

"Yeah!"

"We thought you would be, the Wizard and I." she said, turning back to the audience.

_We couldn't be happier - right, dear?  
>Couldn't be happier - right here<br>Look what we've got  
>A fairy-tale plot<br>Our very own happy ending_

_Where we couldn't be happier - true, dear?_

"Uh, yeah." Fiyero added.

_Couldn't be happier. And we're  
>Happy to share<br>Our ending vicariously  
>With all of you!<em>

_He couldn't look handsomer  
>I couldn't feel humbler<br>We couldn't be happier_

_Because happy is what happens  
>When all your dreams come true<em>

That statement seemed so alien to her. Here she was, with everything she was supposed to have that would make her happy - fortune, fame, popularity, the love of all of Oz, people practically fawning over her, a handsome prince...everything she had always dreamed about.

So why did it not feel enough?

"And _we're _happy for you, Glinda dear!" Madam Morrible added. "Why, as Press Secretary, I have striven to ensure that all of Oz knows the story of your bravorism." She then took the stand, appearing as if she were about to recite a sonnet from the _Oziad_. "How vividly I remember..."

_The day you were first summoned  
>To an audience with Oz<br>And, although he would not tell you why initially  
>When you bowed before his throne<br>He decreed you hence be known  
>As Glinda the Good officially!<em>

"Uh, that's not how you described it to me!" Fiyero whispered in Glinda's right ear.

"Well, not exactly." she returned. "We'll talk about it later."

But Madam Secretary had a captivated audience, and now came the part that Glinda absolutely loathed: the mud-slinging.

_Then, with a jealous _squeal!  
><em>The Wicked Witch burst from concealment<br>Where she had been lurking surreptiously_

Glinda absolutely hated this. It had not been the first time this had happened. On the heels of every 'venture of goodness' to each of the towns of Oz, Madam Morrible and her agents were not far behind, making sure the people knew just how _evil_ the 'Wicked Witch' was.

Then came the rumors. They abounded like rabbits. One rumor spread into another. The gossiping was compounded by almost every little half-truth or rumor that one picked up about the Witch. Suddenly they were all crying something about water.

"Do you hear that?" Fiyero balked incredulously, pointing to the crowds. "Water will _melt_ her?"

"Fiyero..."

"People are _so_ empty-headed, they'll believe _anything_!" he marched off the platform and into an alleyway. _Oh, why do I always get stuck in these positions_, Glinda asked herself. "Just a tick-tock!" she said to Madam Morrible, then walked into the alley, to find Fiyero angrily kicking the side of the wall.

"I can't do this anymore!" he fumed. "I can't just stand there grinning, pretending to go along with all of this!"

"Fiyero, please!" she walked over to his side, placing her hands on his big shoulders. So much different than Elphaba. "I don't like hearing all those awful things about her. I hate it!"

"Then what are we doing here?" he asked. "Let's go!"

Her hands fell off his shoulders as he started walking away.

"But I can't leave now," she said. "Not when people are looking to me to raise their spirits!"

"You can't resist all the attention," he returned, pointing to the crowds. "_That's_ why you can't leave!"

"Well, what if I can't?" For some reason, she was speaking her mind. She didn't do much of that these days, not when every single move was being watched by Madam Morrible's agents. "Is that so wrong? I mean," she sighed, her arms falling lazily to her sides. "Who could?"

"You know who could, who _has_!" he shot back, turning around to pace idly in the empty alley.

"Fiyero," she paused. _How can I tell him? I need to stay here...or do I? _It was so painful, being torn between her love of all the things she had grown up loving.

And the love of her friend.

"I miss her too," she finally admitted. _Even if she finds out and locks me away in the Southstairs, that much deserves to be said_. "But we can't just..."

"Just what?" he returned. "I remember what you told me of what happened." He was now uncomfortably close to her. "And as much as you want to deny it, to sugar-coat your actions, you betrayed her...and _that's_ the truth!"

_By Oz, he's right! _She knew that she had betrayed Elphaba: she used excuses ever since then to try and justify her reasoning for giving her up like that. But at every turn, she still felt so rotten, so horrible, so cruel...

_She was back at Shiz._

_In her dorm, with the green thing. It was long before the Oz-Dust Ballroom, back when she stilll...didn't like her._

_No, hated her. That was the correct word. They were mad at each other at the moment._

_"You are a confrusturating little artichoke!" she had said._

_"And you," the quick-witted green woman returned. "Are a shallow, self-absorbed little child who would sell your own mother out to increase your own popularity!"_

She was right.

"You're right," she sighed, defeatedly. "I did."

"Then let's go!" he insisted.

"And do what?"

"And find her!"

Was that what Fiyero wanted? To go out and look for her? But that's what he had been doing these past three years. She didn't want to be found, or else they would have found her by now. This seemed very foolish...

Yet the memory of what she did that afternoon in the attic still clung to her, reminding her of her betrayal. Another thought rose up, the one of a face being slowly eaten away by a strange purplish glow.

_No, it can't be!_

Yet the image did not leave her face.

"Come with me, then." she said. "Let's start packing."

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: Oh yes, this chapter has a twist! <em>Thank Goodness<em> doesn't go the whole way through! I pulled most of the lines from memory, and adlibbed a little. I often to adlib bits of _Wicked_ lines in my stories. Hope you don't mind that much.)**

**(Any thoughts? Am I just repeating myself with Glinda's remorseful thoughts? Please, say more than just 'good job')**

**(Elphaba will appear in this story. When, however, is different.)**


	4. The Cave

**(AN: Thank you so far for the reviews. To _ms. helfire_, that is part of her own indecision. She likes both of them, but knows that she can only _love_ one of them, and is somewhat torn. [it's part of my plan for creating some 'fireworks' later on, since, if there is a corn-field scene, it won't be the same one from the musical].)**

* * *

><p><strong>The Cave<br>**

"We have to pack light, remember that," Fiyero said.

"Why?" Glinda asked for the hundredth time as they pushed open the doors into her apartment.

"Because only the two of us will be going," he returned. "Only take what you can carry."

_Oh, when did he get so bossy?_

They started packing things from her room. Unfortunately, Glinda did not have much in the way of clothing that were fit for a long journey, especially one on the run. Fiyero had opened her wardrobe and started pulling everything out of them. Glinda threw herself on the bed with a slight flump.

Her thoughts were so flustered. Why did I say yes to this? What are we going to do once we leave and, worse yet, if we're even lucky enough to find Elphaba? She had been gaga about Fiyero since she first met him, but that seemed like the right thing to do. Rich, high society Gilikinese girls were supposed to find a rich man to marry, and Fiyero was exactly that...and handsome to boot.

But Glinda felt horribly torn, between what society expected of her and what she felt was something true and meaningful. Her attachment for Fiyero, she noticed with surprise, had faded since she first met him. It was now vague and different, like a toy that a child wants and begs to have, only to find it quite useless and in the way once she had acquired it. Eventually, she knew, she would have to make a choice, between the one her soul-mate and the 'handsome suave'.

_Oh, why am I always in these situations?_

In the end, there was nothing in Glinda's expansive wardrobe that Fiyero thought would be needful on a long, hard journey. Nevertheless, he found a traveling suit-case and packed in the most expensive dresses he could think of. These were also quite large, so he could only fit three or four into the suitcase.

Once done, he took Glinda by the hand and led her out of the Palace and into the city proper. He found the nearest pawn shop, pawned the dresses and used the money to buy Glinda a pair of traveling clothes. Of course, it was all in green - everything in this city was a hideous, nauseatingly overwhelming shade of green - but the clerk said that it was top-of-the-line, good stuff. Fiyero tried to pick the nicest looking clothes (by his tastes), but also those that were efficient, not just pretty.

"We're not getting them for looks," he told Glinda. "We're getting them because you need traveling clothes."

She just nodded, feeling happy that someone else was making the hard decisions for her. Life was easier when all she had to do was just nod and say yes.

* * *

><p>The rest of the day, they walked out of the Emerald City, the western horizon as their compass. They had not gone beyond a mile from the city walls when Glinda suddenly came to a halt. Fiyero turned around.<p>

"What is it?"

"I can't do this," she whined.

"What do you mean?"

"It's my shoes!" she pouted.

He scoffed. "What about the hiking boots I bought you?"

"They're ugly!"

"But you won't kill your feet wearing them!"

Glinda sighed in resignation, then plopped herself onto the ground. Fiyero tore off the heels, then took up the boots and placed them on Glinda's hose-clad feet.

"Better take these with us," Fiyero said, holding up the heels.

"Why?" Glinda asked.

"If we leave them," he said. "Then someone will know we've been this way." He got up, then helped Glinda to her feet and took off towards the west.

"Wait a minute, why would we be followed?"

"Let me see," he said. "We left our 'surprise' engagement party without telling anyone where we're going - you're the Wizard's 'Ambassador of Goodness' and I'm the Captain of the Gale Force. Yeah, nobody's gonna miss us!"

Glinda sighed, then walked after Fiyero. She looked down at her feet and noticed that they were not screaming up in protest. _These boots might be ugly,_ she thought,_ but they were made for traveling._ She laughed aloud.

"What's wrong?"

"I just had this funny thought," Glinda said. "Of Elphaba in heels." She smiled. "She always wore boots like these, I don't think she'd be able to walk in high heels."

Fiyero chuckled. "You know, sometimes I think you were born in high heels, Glinda."

"No need to be unfashionable," she returned. "One must always look their best, as Momsy always told me."

They walked on in silence for a few more minutes.

"What about when it gets dark?" Glinda asked. "Can't we stop at an inn or something?"

"There aren't many inns out in the west," Fiyero said. "But I don't think the Scrow or Yunamata would be interested in letting us stay in their homes, not with me with you."

"Yuna-whata?" Glinda asked.

"The other Vinkus tribes," Fiyero said. "We're not united, we in the west. It's still quite lawless, that's why fugitives often hide out here."

"I see. And, uh, what tribe do you belong to?"

"Arjiki."

"You all have such strange-ified names!"

"Well," he smiled. "I'm sure there'd be people out here that would think Arduenna or Thropp are odd names in themselves."

Silence once again.

"But what about when night falls?"

"We'll camp out under the stars," Fiyero answered. "It wouldn't be the first time I did."

"Oh," she nodded. More silence, just the pounding of their feet upon the earth.

"Glinda?"

"Hm?"

"Do you really want to marry me?"

"Why would you ask that, Fiyero?"

He turned around.

"I..." he paused, trying hard to pick his next words. "What I mean is that you proposed to me and I haven't given you my answer yet. I want to know if you're really adamant about this."

"I, uh," she hesitated. "I mean, the Wizard did say that it would make the people happy and everything."

"But is it what you really want? Will it make you happiest?"

She did not want to answer him fully. Did he still love her, even after all these years? If so, he would probably not be pleased if she told him the truth. But what if Elphaba did not want her either? Where would that leave Glinda if she told her whole heart to Elphaba and she said no?

"I..." she sighed. "I don't know! I mean, we had a good thing going on back at Shiz, right? Why wouldn't it work out now?"

She didn't believe a word of what she said. Or did she?

* * *

><p>She was in a long, dark hallway, made of stone. Cold and lifeless were the walls around where she stood. Some will other than her own was dragging her forward, toward something she did not exactly know. She saw a dark figure, crouched over something that was glowing violet.<p>

_Oh no, not again!_

"Elphie!" she cried out.

But the thing that answered her was not her Elphaba, not the one she knew. Something was terribly wrong. Two red eyes were glaring out at her from the darkness and then she was falling. The walls of stone disappeared and she fell forever.

So far down...

She awoke with a start, her chest heaving and a cold sweat upon her forehead.

"Glinda, what's wrong?"

"Wrong?" she breathed.

"Well, you were screaming just a few minutes ago," Fiyero returned.

"I..." Was it all just a dream? "I thought I was falling."

"You scared me for a second, there!" Fiyero exclaimed. "Thought we were being attacked."

She laughed uneasily. They were out in the middle of nowhere-land Vinkus, east of the river and west of the City.

"Hey!" Fiyero suddenly called out. "You there!"

Glinda turned around and saw a figure clad in black, making a quick escape into the darkness.

"Come back here!"

"Fiyero, what is it?"

He reached into their camp-fire, braving the intense heat, and brought out a flaming branch. With this in hand, he ran off toward the running figure. Glinda rose up and ran after him. Her travel skirt was slashed and could make running easier. But then again, Glinda did not run like a man and was being out-ran by Fiyero and the darkened figure.

"Wait for me!"

The light from his torch was not much, but it showed something of the ground and gave Glinda a light to follow. She made the best she could, and stumbled over a few rocks in her path. The earth beneath her feet must be getting more and more rough.

"Shh!" Fiyero called back. "I saw it go that way!" He pointed to the darkness. With a wave of the torch-brand, Glinda saw the side of the hill drop off into what looked like the mouth of a cave.

They both turned into the mouth of the cave and started walking inside.

"Whoever you are, hold it right there!" the voice of an old woman called out from the darkness of the cave. "I'll hex you if you come any closer!"

"Who are you?" Fiyero asked. "What are you doing here?"

"Just an old Gilikin woman," the voice said. "On holiday here in Winkie land, when I heard that pretty little thing cry out. Is she alright?"

"Yes, I am," Glinda returned. "But still, who _are_ you?"

"Are you armed?"

"No," Fiyero shook his head. _Why did he say that_, Glinda wondered.

"Alright, come here now."

They slowly walked into the darkness of the cave, Fiyero's torch in hand and Glinda's palms sweaty with fear.

"Name's Mombi," the old woman said, as the light began to fall upon her. Glinda saw that she was rather bent and _very_ old-looking; in fact, she made Fishy-faced Madam Morrible look not that bad by comparison.

"I've heard rumors about you," Glinda said. "You're a sorceress, a witch!"

"And _you_ are a long way from Gilikin, my pretty," the old woman returned.

"I didn't think _you'd_ ever leave either!"

"What I do with my free time is my business!"

"Sorry to disturb you," Fiyero said. "I think we'll just be going."

"Have you seen a witch?" Glinda asked.

"A witch?" Mombi cackled.

"Well," Glinda continued. "She's not _exactly_ a witch. She's a fugitive, but the people of Oz call her a witch. She's dressed in black, flies a broom and has a big black hat."

Another sickly cackle. "Sounds like a witch straight out of a story book!"

"She's very special to us," Fiyero added.

"Us?"

"She had a big book with her," Glinda added. "A magic book."

Silence filled the cave. This did not seem good, though.

"Did it happen to have purple pages?"

"How did you know?" Glinda admitted without thinking.

"It's the Grimmerie, dearie!" Mombi laughed. "But you'd have to be Lurline yourself to find it. That book's been lost for almost a century! And good riddance too!"

"What do you mean?"

"There's something...unnatural about that book, clear as mud."

"How do you know?"

A mocking laugh followed. "Unlike you, ducky, I know how to hold my tongue."

There was an explosion and an acrid smell of sulfur. No more breathing from the third person. Fiyero and Glinda stepped out of the cave, rather weary.

Glinda, however, was shivering. The witch's old words seemed to confirm her worst fears, everything she had been afraid of since she first saw Elphaba take up that horrendible book.

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: Elphaba's up for the next chapter. But I don't want to rush this story along too much, there's got to be some more suspenseful chapters.)<strong>


	5. The Revelation

**(AN: I know that Glinda's mother had a different name in _Out of Oz_, and that is canon. However, as this was written prior to that, this goes on as good information as I had. We can call her Larena Gaylette, then, and have it both ways. :D)**

**(Also, in my _Wicked_ fan-fics, I refer to time by the names of the months from the Julian calendar. That is probably incorrect, since Caesar wasn't from Oz, but neither Maguire nor Baum took much time with time [lol] in their stories [the one just wanted a story, and the other was busy attacking religion. I'll let you sort out which was which]. As you can see, I didn't like Maguire's 'explanation' for how time flows)**

**(Enough ranting, this chapter is Elphaba's big appearance...and a revision of the second Throne Room scene [just watch for the similarities...and be ready for the big shocker at the end!])  
><strong>

* * *

><p><strong>The Revelation<strong>

Ten days had passed since the incident in the cave. Both Fiyero and Glinda were covered in sweat and dirt and tired beyond comprehension. They had searched up and down on the eastern side of the Great Kells, with not so much as a rumor of the Wicked Witch anywhere to whet the appetites of their search.

The afternoon was well on its way, and the clouds were hanging low and dark in the sky above. For the month of May, it threatened rain just as any day in April.

"Fiyero," Glinda whined at the one who led her onward.

"Yes, what is it now?" he was just as tired, just as weary. They had walked the same amount of miles, the two of them, and every hardship, every storm, every foot-fall, every stumble, they had endured together. He bore it all in silence, knowing that he had his ultimate goal ahead of him.

She didn't.

"We've been walking in circles for too long!" she whined. "Are we even on the _right_ trail? Oh, what am I saying, is there even a trail to follow?"

"What do you mean?" he tried to sound confident and together, but he shared her doubts.

"I don't think Elphie wants to be found," she admitted with a huff. "I mean, we've been searching for her for almost three weeks! I mean, what if she's left, or hurt or…or…"

Fiyero turned and saw that she was sniffling, the onset of a horrible wave of tears of which he did not want to take part.

Fortunately, the elements were on his side.

"Let's find a place to rest, okay?" he suggested. "Before it rains."

She nodded at this suggestion. It seemed good to her, apparently. At least, now, they were resting. Or, maybe, they had finally given up? The past week they had not stopped to rest until night. Maybe this was a sign that they had at last given up their search?

* * *

><p>It was late, but Glinda could not fall asleep. The rain had at last fallen, and the roaring, pounding rush of water upon rock kept her awake like nothing else. They built no fire at the mouth of their cave, for fear that it would choke them in their sleep. Even so, she wished that they had some warmth, some light, other than the flashes of angry lightning, barring down from the sky.<p>

In one flash, she saw something lying out in the rain, like a dead animal. It made her a little nervous. Whatever could kill that animal, or Animal, was probably still out there. What if it came after _them_ next? They had not come very armed, just one musket that Fiyero carried with him. She did not know the particulars of how to use it, and that made her even more fearful in case of attack.

For some strange reason that she could never fully articulate, Glinda got up from where she was sitting and walked out into the pouring, cold rain. The night was even darker by reason of the clouds, and she jumped at every crash of lightning or boom of thunder. That black figure lying on the ground out there in the rain seemed to call to her, as if it were still just barely alive - just _barely_ - and she alone had the power to save it. Another blast of distant lightning sent her to her knees: now she was crawling forward, trying not to think of the dirt and filth her green travel-dress and her lovely manicured hands were enduring. Just the thought was enough to make her faint.

Another crash of lightning illuminated the form clearly enough for Glinda to make something out. Her cry was drowned out by the roaring thunder and the pouring rain.

In the dark, she reached out to the fallen body. It was still warm, though heavily soaked by reason of the endless raining. Summoning what strength she could, she turned the figure over. Like a blind-man, she groped across the body, trying to make out what she had seen briefly in the shine of the lightning. Her cheeks grew warm as she moved her hands up and felt something she'd rather not be feeling on someone unconscious. There was a face, however, above that a-ways - strangely sharp-featured, yet smooth.

She yelped out again.

"Fiyero!" she called out. "Come here!"

When he did not instantly jump up and run to her side, she got up and ran back to the mouth of the cave. Slipping, she fell down at his knees, ignored the tear in her dress, and began shaking him violently. At last, it seemed, he was rising from sleep.

"What is it?"

"Come here!" she called out, trying her best to overcome the roar of the storm. Slowly, and with the water pouring down their necks, upon their heads, in their faces and eyes, they made their way back out of the cave and Glinda came to the fallen form.

"Quick!" she panted. "We've gotta get her inside the cave!"

"'Her?'" Fiyero queried.

"Please! Help me!"

* * *

><p>When the day came at last, Glinda's fears proved to be true. The figure they had discovered lying in the rain was indeed a human, clad in little more than a simple black dress that looked like it belonged underneath her usual clothes. The hair was black, oily and soaked with the water of last night's down-pour. The face, however, was still the same shade of green as they had remembered it.<p>

"Elphie," Glinda whispered. She feared the worst. Rumors had it that she was allergic to water. Though she hadn't believed them, unless the green woman made some kind of sign of response, Glinda was more than compelled to believe them now.

At last, there was some kind of stirring. The emerald head started to gently toss back and forth. The eyelids quivered and Glinda's breath vanished as she saw the chest move up and down more regularly with breath.

Glinda squealed, not in delight or surprise, but in shock. Fiyero also shouted an expletive as he found himself thrown down onto his back. The green thing was now crouching at the back of the cave, a Tigress ready for the attack, a single green claw raised open in a sign of attack. Little golden-red sparks were starting to gather and hover between the points of the claw like little fire-flies of death.

"Elphaba," Glinda finally said. "It's okay, we're not going to hurt you!"

The creature did not move, it just kept them in her eyes, glaring at them venomously. It was hissing so loudly, it almost sounded like it was seething.

"Elphie," Glinda dropped the formality, fearful over what had come upon her friend to change her so. "Look, it's me! It's Glinda!"

One of the poignant brown eyes twitched in the blond's direction. The fingers relaxed, and the little sparks faded away like mist.

"Glinda?" a voice spoke from the green thing's lips. It was the same voice that Glinda had missed all these three years.

"Oh, Elphie!" she broke down, throwing herself upon the green woman's neck. "Thank Oz you're alive!"

* * *

><p>They spent several days in that cave, not really speaking much to each other. Elphaba was rather weak, and they had come to an unspoken agreement that they would keep her with them until she was fully restored to health and strength. What they would do after that, however, was what Glinda had been dreading. The fear that this would be the last time that they...that <em>she<em> would see Elphaba.

She wouldn't get another chance if she fudged up this one.

"Elphie," she said at last, one hazy morning in late April while Fiyero was off looking for firewood.

"Hmm?" the green woman turned to look at Glinda. She was fighting (unsuccessfully) to keep herself from melting on the spot. Just looking at the tall, dark-haired green woman and drinking in every detail of her sent wee Glinda's heart racing. She also saw how thin and haggard she looked: fugivity must be taking a heavy toll on her.

_Oh_, she thought. _If only I could just speak my mind. Why is that so hard?_ But her tongue seemed to swell within her mouth, refusing to move as she began taking notice of the flecks of gray in Elphaba's brown eyes. Every time she tried to say something, it was like she suddenly found a whole new interest in a part of her that she hadn't noticed before. She began to encounter on a bizarre and unexpected sense of empathy towards Bick for the courage he had had to come right up to her and tell her all about his feelings.

_But I shoe'd him away,_ Glinda thought. _What if Elphie does the same to me? What if she rejects this shallow, self-absorbed, silly little child? It won't be anything less than I deserve._

"What?"

"Uh," she realized that her mouth had been lolling open ever-so slightly. She quickly turned her gaze outside the cave. "Lovely weather, isn't it?"

"It's a bit rainy for April, I'll give it that." Elphaba returned.

"We've been so worried," Glinda at last said, turning her eyes to the ground just outside the cave's mouth. "When we couldn't find you, we were afraid you had been discoverated by the Wizard."

"As if!" Elphaba mocked. She then turned to her friend. "What, do you think a fugitive _wants_ to be found?"

"I guess not," Glinda sighed.

She was now looking back up at Elphaba. The green woman looked so calm, so steady, even though she was crouched up, knees huddled up beneath her chin. She now sighed, her hand coming to rest upon her forehead. Glinda was quite oblivious to the fact that her breathing had become heavier, she was too busy just staring at the green hand, wishing that she could be a glove upon that hand. A strange, burning sensation began to flood throughout Glinda's small body. It felt like a million candles were being blown in the wind by the wings of all the butterflies billowing about inside her. It was quite disconcerting, and it made her flesh get warm and her breath even heavier. She did not wish the feeling to ever go away.

Just then, like a knowing parent, Fiyero returned and placed himself directly between the two of them. The uncomfortably welcome feeling vanished like the mist in the rising sun.

"So," he said, turning to the green woman. "What happened to you?"

"I was attacked," Elphaba answered. Glinda gasped nearby. "I...I don't recall much of what happened. I guess I must have got hit on the head hard, knocked out cold." She turned to the two, looking at her suspiciously. "Why?"

"Well," Fiyero continued. "We found you lying in the rain, all alone. Where are your clothes? Surely you haven't been flying about Oz in nothing but an under-dress!"

"I don't know," Elphaba replied. "I don't remember."

"What _do_ you remember?"

"Oh!" she suddenly lit up. "I found this deserted castle in the hills not too far from here."

"You did?" Fiyero asked suspiciously.

Without another word, she was up and at 'em, running out from the mouth of the cave. Fiyero ran after her so quickly that Glinda noticed he forgot to take his musket.

* * *

><p>"There it is!" she said, pointing to the castle as if she were a child who has found a great treasure.<p>

"That's _my_ castle!" Fiyero stated. "Well, my family's castle."

"Really?" Elphaba returned, as Glinda brought up the rear, panting as usual. "Why, then, is it an abandoned wreck?"

"Hey, hey, hey!" Fiyero retorted. "First of all, Kiamo Ko is _hardly_ a wreck. Secondly, nobody's lived there."

"Then how come it's _your_ family's castle," Elphaba quickly replied. "If nobody's lived there? Where do you live?"

"Oh, at the other castle." Fiyero said, as if owning two castles were something that everybody did.

"Well, then," Elphaba said, sounding mischevious. "I guess I'm your little uninvited guest. What will you do with me?"

He chuckled. "Come on, I'll show you around." He walked off toward the moat, where a draw-bridge was laid out - pretty much permanently. Elphaba followed after, though Glinda - as she took up the rear - got the distinct idea that she had been here before.

"How will you 'show me around'," Elphaba said, as they passed through the arch of the castle. "If you've never been here yourself?"

"My family has never lived here," Fiyero clarified. "That doesn't mean I've never _been_ here. I used to come out here all the time when I was young, hiding from my parents or governesses. I used to play a mean hide-n-seek. There are several tunnels that go out of the castle from the basement, some secret passageways, trap doors. It's the perfect place to hide."

They were now in the courtyard of the castle, open-air with a well in the center of the yard.

"How did _you_ find your way here?" Fiyero asked, as they walked into a room on the right-hand side of the horse-shoe wall.

"Slept in a cave one night," Elphaba answered. "In the morning, I went in deeper and saw that it was a tunnel. Led into your basement."

"How did you get past the guards?"

"Guards?" Elphaba asked. "What guards?"

"The castle sentries," Fiyero stated. "Arjiki clan members who protect this castle for my folks."

Awkward silence followed as the two women stood still. Fiyero broke the silence by whistling an old Arjiki marching tune. Even in the merry color of a whistle, it was still dissonant and foreboding.

He halted.

The sounds of boots could clearly be heard down one end of the castle hall. Then the chatter of people as the guards made their way into the castle.

Fiyero didn't make a sound, but waved them onward, into another hallway, farther away from the door. Glinda tripped on a metal poker that had been thrown away from the hearth, and made a noise.

"Oh Shiz!" Fiyero swore.

The room was suddenly swarmed by the guards in their tribal dress, all of them brandishing halberds in their direction. In no time at all, they were surrounded in a thicket of spears and pikes.

"Your Highness!" one of the guards said, saluting as he saw the young prince. "We heard noises in the hallway. It seems you found the intruder!"

"'Intruder?'" he repeated.

"That one," the guard nodded towards Elphaba. "We knew someone was sneaking into the castle, raiding the larders. Didn't know it was the Witch!"

"Good work," Fiyero said to the guard. "Now, go, the lot of you. Go fetch me some water."

"Water, Your Highness?"

"You heard me," Fiyero affirmed. "As much as you can carry. Now go!"

"Sir!" They filed out one-by-one, leaving them all alone in the hall. Once the door was shut, Fiyero shoved his hand into his mouth and walked on down the hall.

"Wait, what was all that about?" Elphaba asked perplexedly.

"Yeah, we all know she's not allergic to water," Glinda spoke up at last. After all, they had both dragged Elphaba in from the rain.

"I just had to see," Fiyero whispered. "If they'd fall for it. Seems even in the Vinkus, they're listening to the lies from the Emerald City. Now come on, let's go."

Just then, the sound of the hammer of a musket cocking back was heard behind them.

"Fiyero, just go." Glinda said slowly, carefully. Both of her hands were shaking as they gripped the weapon, about two-thirds her height.

"Glinda, what are you doing?" Fiyero asked.

"Fiyero, just go back to the guards!" she repeated, leveling the muzzle in his direction. "Tell them she escaped and took me hostage. They'd believe that."

"Glinda," Fiyero held both of his hands up. "I know you're not the sharpest tool in the box, but what in Oz's name are you doing?"

"Yes, Glinda," Elphaba added. "What _are_ you doing?"

Glinda could feel her throat constrict. It was a rather foolish plan, one she had not had the forethought to think out all the way through. She had never thought it would come to this point, where she would actually have to speak her mind...and in front of Elphaba, no less.

She lowered the musket just a little, then turned to Elphaba, trying hard to govern herself and say everything she needed to say. It was now or never.

"Elphie," she said at last. "I need to tell you something, something I should have told you that afternoon in the Attic in the Emerald City." Her throat suddenly became dry.

"Yes?" the green woman asked, sounding so uncharacteristically meek and unsuspecting.

"I love you, Elphie!" she blurted out abruptly. That was not how she had intended to say it, but her body was betraying her, it seemed. "I mean it, I _really_ do!"

The silence that followed was perhaps more painful than Glinda had expected.

Fiyero began with a sigh of disbelief.

"You love _her_?" he exclaimed. "But what a minute, I thought you wanted to marry me. Wasn't that what the whole engagement party was for?"

""Engagement party?'" Elphaba repeated.

"She still has the ring on her finger!" Fiyero stated, pointing to Glinda's hand.

Biting her lip nervously, she reached down to her hand and wrenched the ring off her sweaty, filthy hand - she couldn't remember the last time she had bathed, since the down-pour did not count as a proper bath. Once the traitorous little band of gold was in her fingers, she threw it at Fiyero's feet.

"I was forced to do it," she said. "The Wizard and-and Madam Morrible said it would bring the people together. But, then, what you said...it-it made me see it all clear. And I knew that there was only one place I should be..." She turned back to Elphaba.

"At your side."

Fiyero still had a stunned look on his face, as if this was just too much to believe. Maybe it was, at least for him. After all, he had imagined, before, that he and Glinda were meant for each other. Then Elphaba's presence - both annoying and strangely enticing - crawled its way into his shallow life and he couldn't get enough of her. But now he was about to be deprived of _both_ of them.

"Well, I mean," he said at last. "If it's what _you_ want, what you _really_ want, I won't stand in the way or try to force you or anything. That's what the Wizard and Madam Morrible were doing, after all, right?"

He was trying very hard to hide his surprise and...would he admit that it was _jealousy_?

No one spoke for so long that Glinda was about ready to scream just to alleviate the tension in the air.

"Well?" Fiyero asked. "Get going! They'll be back soon enough, you don't want to be captured, do you?"

A sudden rush of heat filled through Glinda's body. Turning down, her heart leaped at the sight of Elphaba's green fingered hand grasping her tiny, pale-pink one. Their eyes met for a brief moment, and she found herself unable to speak again. But her heart yearned to speak, to say something..._anything!_ She had thrown her heart at Elphaba's feet with her abrupt statement. She now waited to see if she would accept it or smash it beneath her booted feet.

* * *

><p>They were on their way through one of the many tunnels that led out of Kiamo Ko. They had to escape before the guards came back and found that they were gone, or that their prince and master had lied to them.<p>

But Glinda couldn't go on, not anymore. Was it her body that betrayed her now, exhausted and weak, unfamiliar with all this running around? Or was it her heart, refusing to let her body continue until Elphaba gave her a straight answer?

"What's wrong?" the green woman asked, turning back to the blond.

"Just say it."

"Say what?"

"You know what, Elphie," she returned. "I just said I loved you, and I won't go one more step before I get an answer."

Pause. _Why can't people just speak their mind instead of taking their damn time?_

"This is all so unexpected," Elphaba said at last, taking a step back and looking at the ground. "I-I thought you were all into Fiyero and everything."

"I was," Glinda returned. _Just say what needs to be said, so she can hurry up and answer me before my heart explodes_. "But it didn't feel right. I get this strange feeling inside me, whenever I'm with you, like you're the only one who _really_ knows me, like..."

"As different as we are on the outside," Elphaba finished. "We know each other inside. But I don't see how that's any different than just a friend."

"I..." Glinda hesitated. "I feel things when I'm near you. My heart races and-and I can't think straight. I want to be closer to you, I-I..." _I sound so stupid_. _This is going absolutely nowhere!_

Was it thought or feeling that caused her to do what she did next?

She moved in, her wee hands reaching up to grasp the green face on her lovely cheeks. She pulled the head a bit lower, down to her level, closed her eyes and felt their lips wrap together.

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: Cliffhanger! [though you can probably guess what she'll say])<strong>

**(Had lots of book and musical references in this lengthy chapter. lol, and Fiyero got to be Senior Crotch-blocker [don't think I can use the rooster-euphemism], and shamelessly ripped off _Romeo and Juliet_. Wish I could say more, but I've got a dozen more stories to be working on and very little inspiration. Sorry it's taken so long, but I have no internet now other than my brother's - and he is an interdict-or - ****and you can see how that's been working.)**

**(What did you think of this chapter? Anything OOC? Any changes to be made? Don't worry, we'll be getting back to the main part of the story, the Grimmerie, shortly. It will be quite scary - hopefully -wicked laughter-)**


	6. The Witch's Guest

**(AN: Horay for the reviews! I've done a lot of thinking about this chapter, and decided at last to force myself to get it out there. A lot of stuff will start happening, important stuff. Yes, the title comes from the book _Dracula's Guest_.)**

**(As for Fiyero's reaction, to those who might have thought he merited a different reaction, I'd like to joke that _he_ thinks he's in a Fiyeraba fan-fic, and doesn't know that the author is not writing such. I'm not going to make him a villain or anything, but anything more concerning him...I can't say. Also, for those expecting a Gelphie slasher-fic, sorry to disappoint you. I'll only go into detail about their _sexual_ interactions when it is important to the progression of the plot of the story [hint hint!])**

**(Enjoy!)**

* * *

><p><strong>The Witch's Guest<strong>

It might not have been one of the moments that she, Glinda, would have been most proud of Elphaba concerning, but she was quite amazed at how the green women had managed to convince the castle sentries to let them stay at Kiamo Ko. At Elphaba's insistence, Glinda hadn't been there when the _shiz_ actually hit the ceiling.

"Just stay here," Elphaba said, indicating to the basement through which they had returned to the castle. "I'll come back for you and you can be amazed."

Which left Glinda sitting in the castle's basement for a while, feeling very forlorn and discarded. She longed to be back in that tunnel, her lips around the dark-violet lips of the Witch. Half an hour had passed since the green woman disappeared, and Glinda was starting to get nervous.

"Come on," a voice said. Looking up, her heart leaped as she saw a green face looking down upon her.

"Elphie?"

But the face disappeared. Eager to see what it was that Elphaba had done, Glinda picked up her skirts and walked up the stairs into the courtyard.

"What is it?" she asked. The castle looked no different than when they had first entered.

"It's ours now," Elphaba smiled. Nay, almost laughed. Glinda felt happy to see that even now, Elphaba seemed a little merrier than before.

"Huh?"

"The castle," she said at last. "I talked it over with the guards, and they let us stay here. "

Glinda kept herself from squealing inside. It was just like a fairy tale, even down to the living in a castle.

* * *

><p>Morning came at last. Glinda found herself in the master bed-chamber.<p>

_Oh my Oz,_ she thought. _What happened last night?_

She knew, she had been awake through the whole ordeal...and she loved it. They had done things that would make her mother disown her if she knew (from what Elphaba had said about her father, Glinda knew that he would disown _her_ also).

Her hand lazily fell to her side, striking only the covers of the bed. Turning a bit, she saw that Elphaba wasn't there. A little worried, she sat up straight and looked around for some sign that she was there, keeping the bed-sheet held across her body.

Then she saw it, sitting on the pillow next to her own. A tiny note sitting innocuously just a few inches from where she had laid. Throwing herself back onto the bed, she unfolded the note and read therefrom.

_Dear Glinda,_

_Had to go out today. Will be back soon. Feel free to look around the castle. Give any messages for me to Orkeyoi._

_Love, Elphaba_

Glinda felt a little disappointed at this turn-out. She had wanted to spend the day with Elphaba, catching up, talking about this and that, rearranging the castle according to her liking. It was horribly dark and dirty in here, and she thought she saw several spiders crawling along the walls as if they owned the place. And who in Oz's name was Orkeyoi?

She looked around the room for a while and discovered her green travel dress, lying quite forsaken at the end of the room. She didn't care, since nobody else would be about the castle. With nothing else to do, she also could go back to sleep.

A smile crept over her face as she slid back into the covers.

But she did not sleep for very long. Her sleep was disrupted by the sound of the swaking of some great bird. Nervously, she jumped out of bed and looked around to see who it was that was making the racket. A stork stood on the ledge of one of the high windows of the room.

"Are you Glinda?" the Stork asked.

"Who wants to know?" she returned.

"I'm a friend," he said. "Elphaba sent me to make sure you are well and happy. My name is Orkeyoi."

So _this_ is he. "Orkeyoi? Can I call you 'Orky' for short?"

"I'd rather you didn't," the Stork replied. "But quickly, I am in haste. Do you have any message for Elphaba?"

"Nothing," she admitted. "Just give her my love and ask her when she'll be back."

"I will," he nodded.

"Oh," she spoke up again. "Do you think you could send a message for me?"

"Yes."

"Okay, uh, wait here for a moment."

She walked over to the desk and found a piece of paper, upon which she hastily scribbled a note and folded it up. She then turned back to the Stork and presented him with the note.

"I want you to give this to someone in the Emerald City." she said.

* * *

><p>It had been many days since the engagement party that had gone wrong. All of Oz was struck by the sudden disappearance of two of their heroes - both the captain of the Wizard's Gale Force and Glinda the Good were missing. Many feared the worst, especially with the Wicked Witch of the West still at large.<p>

One person, however, did not give up all hope. One person still held out that her mistress was not dead. Hiding, perhaps, or maybe even, at the worst, on the run. But dead? She would never accept that.

One lonely night, Jellia Jamb sat awake, unable to sleep as she pondered what her future had in store for her, now that she was technically unemployed. But she didn't want to believe it: Glinda was out there, somewhere.

Just then, a loud rapping came at her window.

Giving out a tiny cry of alarm, she tip-toed over to the window and saw a stork sitting on the ledge. For some reason that she could never fully comprehend, she pried the window open.

"I have a message for you from Glinda," So it was a _Stork_ instead.

Jellia had to stifle a cry of surprise. So she _was_ alive after all. I knew it, I knew she couldn't be dead!

"She says that everything is well," the Stork continued. "She is alive, but in hiding. She asks for some of her clothes to be brought over to her."

"How many?" was all the awe-struck Jellia Jamb could reply.

The Stork sighed, as if he had been both expecting and dreading this moment.

"As many as I can carry."

* * *

><p>Several days had passed, and the one thing that made Glinda's absence here at Kiamo Ko all the more unbearable was the absence of Elphaba. She busied herself with making food for herself - or at least trying to. Cooking was never her strong-suit: she always had it in mind that she would have a Cook at her disposal, one who could do all of that cullinariation for her. A nice cook, middle-aged, good-natured with a smile on his mustached face. Puggles suddenly came to mind as a good nickname for...<p>

The Stork Orkeyoi came to a crash-landing on her bed through one of the many windows of the castle. Glinda heard the squawk and ran to see what might be the cause of the commotion. Nestled atop a bundle of her dresses was the Stork.

"Here they are!" he groaned, plucking himself up from his fall.

"Oh, thank you!" she squealed with delight. "Oh, Orky, you're such a life-saver!"

"Think nothing of it," he ruffled his feathers, then stood up in all of his Storkish glory. "By the way, I ran into Elphaba on the way to the City."

"You did?" Glinda's heart must have skipped a beat. She didn't really notice.

"She said she's coming back to visit you soon," he stated. "Said she's got a few new friends with her she'd like you to meet."

"Oh?" The thought of someone else with her, to lift her loneliness, was just so awesome and wonderful! But was it unfair that she wanted that someone else to be her Elphie?

"That was on the day I left here," he continued. "About six days ago. Sorry, but after all, we _are_ on the run." He chuckled. "Had to lose the trail of some fowlers the Gale Force were using. The nerve! They push noble Hawks and Kestrels into silence and then use them as _slaves_ to hunt down the prey they're too lazy to hunt down themselves!"

"I know, it's awful!" Glinda said, a bit absentmindedly.

Orkeyoi took his leave, and Glinda was left to muse over what a joyous time she would have once her beloved Elphie returned.

* * *

><p><em>So, if you care to find me<br>Look to the western sky_

That was what she had said when she first disappeared. But Glinda couldn't look into the west now. There was nothing to the west, just the Thousand Year Grasslands beyond the Great Kells, and the land of Ev beyond that. It was now to the east, to the gathering darkness, that the wee blond Gilikin girl had her blue eyes turned. Her love was away, keeping Oz safe.

But did keeping Oz safe mean that there would be no time for the other things of life? Like love and companionship: were those devoid in the life of one who took up the mantle of protector of all of Oz?

A black speck, darker than the darkness, appeared in the eastern sky. Glinda's heart raced as she hoped beyond hope that this black speck was the one she had been waiting patiently for for...for...for Oz knows how many days or weeks.

The figure was now getting closer. Glinda could make out definite details. It wasn't a bird, that much was for certain. And since nothing else seemed to take to the air, her heart leaped once again.

Glinda picked up the skirts of her dress and almost ran up the stairs to the Eastern tower. That room Elphaba had taken for a private study, and, she guessed, would be where she landed.

She threw the door open and found Elphaba standing there, broomstick in her hand. Her clothing looked very wind-swept, and her hat was held down over her face.

"Elphie!" Glinda exclaimed. She ran out, arms open, to meet her.

Elphaba took a step back.

"Elphie, it's me!" she stated. "It's Glinda!"

"Where did you get that?" the green woman said slowly, pointing to the dress.

"Oh, the Stork Orky brought it over." Glinda replied.

"Wherever from?"

"From the Emerald City."

Immediately, Glinda realized that she had spoken wrong, yet she did not know how. Without another word, Elphaba threw the broomstick onto the floor and dashed down the stairs to their bedroom. Glinda walked after her, still surprised at what had come over her friend and love.

A sudden growling yell pierced the air.

"You dim-witted blonde!" the green woman roared. "You've given us away!"

"Elphie, what do you mean?" she sobbed, tears rising up against her will.

"Oh, or didn't it occur to you," Elphaba snapped. "That taking expensive dresses _known_ to belong to Glinda the Good, the public face of goodness out of the _Emerald City_ for Oz's sake, the headquarters of the 'Wonderful Wizard of Oz', and then taking them off into the wilderness, isn't as plain as a trail of bread-crumbs?"

_Quite a welcome._ Glinda balked, fear in her eyes at the anger of her beloved Elphie. What had come over her that made her act this way? Her hands went up to cover her face as she could feel the tears streaming down her face.

"I'm sorry, Glinda," Elphaba said again. Whatever madness had possessed her during her tirade seemed to be over. Yet Glinda was not entirely sure. "I-I've been busy, been so stressed out with this whole war against the Wizard I've been waging. It's taking it's toll on me." She scoffed, her usual dry humor. "I'll be lucky if I live to see forty."

Glinda kept on sobbing.

"Oh, please, don't cry." Elphaba's voice rang with softness and sympathy. One of the green hands reached up and pulled Glinda's hands down from over her face. "I was upset, can you forgive me?"

"Mhm," she nodded.

Elphaba smiled. Glinda smiled back. One green hand reached up and began drying the mascara-lines of tears on her face.

Suddenly, Elphaba pulled her hand back, exclaiming as if she'd poked her finger.

"Ow!"

"Elphie," Glinda chuckled. "What was that for?"

The green woman looked at Glinda, then back to her hand, then finally shook her head.

"No, it was nothing," she said.

"Well, it didn't look like 'nothing'," Glinda finished wiping her eyes with her own hands, then placed her arm on Elphaba's bony shoulder.

"No, it's fine." Elphaba brushed off. "Just tired from all the stress of the war."

She walked back to the East tower, with Glinda walking after her.

"What 'war' are you fighting exactly?" she asked, plopping herself up on one of the tables on the side of the wide room.

"I have to undo all that the Wizard has done," Elphaba began with a sigh, sitting down with her back against the heavy stone pedestal that sat in the center of the room. "All the wrongs have to be righted, all the hurts have to be healed. Starting, of course, with the Animals."

"Why with them?"

"Some of the greatest minds in Ozian history were Animal minds," Elphaba retorted. "Besides, this whole fear of change, of people who are different, that's part of the Wizard's regime. That can't be part of the new order of things. No, the Animals have to be saved from the silence he's pushed them into."

"How will you save them?"

"With this," Elphaba said. She then reached into her bag, the dull gray pouch that hung from a strap across her shoulder, and lifted out a heavy tome with a leather binding. Glinda's mouth turned dry as she saw that dreadful thing once again. So Elphaba's never gotten rid of it.

"I'll teach them how to speak, how to use their...hands...to work," Elphaba continued, returning the Grimmerie to its bag. "And I'll use magic to help my work, help the Animals learn faster what they've forgotten. With so many minds freed from the shackles of silence, Oz will be well on its way to equality, to a better future."

Glinda nodded, though any thoughts or concerns about this grand scheme of Elphaba's paled in comparison to the feeling of anxiety she felt as she looked at Elphaba's bag, the Grimmerie lurking there like a wild Kalidah - Glinda had never seen one, but she had heard the rumors of those creatures, living in the Pine Barrens and attacking travelers.

* * *

><p>Two weeks passed since Elphaba had discovered that Glinda had been smuggling dresses from the Emerald City to Kiamo Ko. Elphaba left the morning after in good spirits.<p>

"If you need anything," she told Glinda. "Tell Orkeyoi to give your list to me. I'll see what I can do."

With that, the green-skinned woman took off from the tall window of the East tower, leaving Glinda feeling quite lonely and forlorn. To her great dread, she found that Elphaba had once again taken the Grimmerie with her.

To make her solitude a little more comfortable, it seemed that Elphaba had made good on her promise. Though Glinda was not exactly sure how she liked this new arrangement. Before she left, Elphaba introduced Glinda to a group of monkeys she had rescued from the Emerald City. Turns out that these were in fact _the_ monkeys, the ones that Elphaba had been tricked into magicking for the Wizard that day three years ago. Elphaba introduced her to Chistery and Nicko and told them to behave and be nice to Glinda.

The monkeys really didn't make much for conversation. They took care of themselves and, though Glinda was certain there must have been at least a hundred monkeys in all, she never saw more than two dozen at a time. Chistery, who was skilled at writing and could express himself if he had a chalk-board and chalk, told Glinda that they were off doing their 'monkey business', and Glinda didn't press the matter.

No need to know what 'monkey business' they were doing. Not the least when she and Elphaba couldn't do their own 'monkey business', since she was away all the time.

One late afternoon, when the shadows were long and the sun had just vanished beyond the Thousand Year Grassland, Chistery flew up to the window of Glinda's room. He rapped on the window with his fist, until Glinda opened the window and let him in. At once he flew off out of the room, and returned with a small chalk-board and chalk.

_Orkeyoi has been working for Elphaba in the East. She told me to tell you to give any messages to me._

"You've seen Elphie?" Glinda asked hopefully. Chistery nodded. Glinda's face lit up with joy.

"Can you tell her this?" Glinda was about to say, then thought better of it. She walked over to her desk, took one of the leaves of parchment and scribbled a note to Elphaba there-upon. She folded the note up and sealed it with a kiss, which left a mark since her lipstick was still fresh. She gave the note to Chistery, who sniffed the paper oddly.

"Oh, and can you get something for me?"

Chistery nodded.

"I need a copy of the _Emerald Herald_."

Chistery rubbed the chalk-board with his hands, then began to write something.

"I know, I know, Elphie can get me one." Glinda stated. "But you can get one for me much faster. Please? I need to know what's going on in Oz? Pretty please?" For some strange reason, she was batting her eye-lashes and trying to look cute for this little monkey.

Chistery made a rasping noise, rubbed the chalk-board down, then finished writing. He then gave it over to Glinda.

_I'll see what I can do._

* * *

><p>Glinda did not have to wait for too long. About an hour after Chistery left, he came flapping back to the window. Glinda opened it up and the monkey flew into her room and jumped upon the bed, doing a victory dance that brought giggles eking out of wee Glinda.<p>

"Do you have it?"

The monkey paused for a moment, then walked over to his chalk-board, left on her floor when he flew off to carry out Glinda's task, wrote something on it, then handed it to her along with a rolled-up green-leaved newspaper.

_I think I deserve a kiss for my valiant efforts_.

Glinda rolled her eyes and smiled. "You silly monkey."

Chistery made a face that looked quite dejected, his wings drooped, and he walked out of the room with his head hung.

"Aww, don't be like that!" Glinda pouted. She sighed. "Oh, okay."

Suddenly, he became all excited. He ran up to Glinda, lips pursed and held up high to receive the kiss. The blond giggled, then patted his head.

"Now go on," she said. "I need to sleep."

Satisfied, Chistery flew off to join the other monkeys.

Glinda straightened out her bed, made messy after Chistery's 'victory dance', then plopped herself into bed, wrapping the covers about herself. She then turned the _Herald_ to see the head-line.

_More Disappearances_

_At least five people have disappeared in Oz this weekend. Sir Nicolas Chuffrey, the wealthy Gilikin baron, disappeared while on a hunting trip to the Great Gilikin Forest. A Shenshen Mikos of the Gilikinese Mikos clan vanished from her house two days ago. A Munchkinlander named Boq disappeared from Colwen Grounds, according to inside sources in the Independent State of Munchkinland working in the house of the Wicked Witch of the East. Two Munchkins also disappeared._

_"The Gale Force," said the Wizard's Press Secretary Madam Morrible. "Will not rest until these people have been returned, or at least their whereabouts made known. This is clearly an attack upon the safety and security of the People of Oz. What we must now do is stand together in unity against this terrorist, who has now stooped to kidnapping."_

_When asked if she knew who was responsible for the disappearances, she had only six words for this reporter:_

_"The Wicked Witch of the West."_

This was quite disturbing. Glinda didn't know what Elphaba had been doing while she was away. All she knew was that she was doing 'something' to save the Animals from silence and help them return Oz to how it was before the Wizard. She also knew that Elphaba would never hurt anyone unless they were intentionally harming or hurting Animals. Had they done that?

Not Shenshen, and most certainly not Biq. Glinda knew Shenshen back at Shiz. Though she was a spineless, gutless tweed who went which ever way the wind blew, she didn't seem like someone who could be _purposefully_ hurting Animals. Out of ignorance, maybe, but surely Elphaba wouldn't do something to her just because of her ignorance...would she?

She hadn't heard from Biq since that day at the Train Station - and that much the better. She always found his presence a bit annoying, especially all of his advances at her. Galinda would have just said 'Well, can I help it that I'm good-looking?' and then shove poor Biq off on some poor, hapless nobody and be thankful that he wasn't her problem. But Glinda was concerned for Biq, even in the slightest, smallest, most superficial way. What did Elphaba do to him?

Was it even Elphaba's fault? She remembered that she was the 'public ambassador of goodness', whatever _that_ meant. Surely with her gone, people were in fear that their ambassador of goodness was missing. But that also did not make sense: if Madam Morrible and the Wizard wanted her to tour the provinces, telling them that everything was okay, why would they be posting these disappearances? Surely that was a sign of bad news, not good news.

_No_, she concluded. _If they're publishing bad things in the _Emerald Herald_, it must be to bring down Elphaba._

But did that make them true or not?

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: Hope you waited around long enough for this chapter to be posted. And sorry it took so long. But I've got my desktop working, so I plan to be updating much more frequently.)<strong>

**(If you notice anything from the books, its there to flesh out the story. Remember, musical-verse. And that whole scene with Chistery was partly inspired by Dopey from _Snow White_.)**

**(So...tell us what you think.)**


	7. One Night at Kiamo Ko

**(AN: I've seen some T-rated _gelphie_ fics that push the boundaries. That's all I'm going to say.)**

* * *

><p><strong>One Night at Kiamo Ko<strong>

Chistery pinched a calendar for the tower-ridden Glinda to keep track of the days. From what she could discern, it had been about three months staying here at this lonely castle in the Great Kells. The monkeys were often about, though they left much to be desired when it came to conversating.

As if to taunt her boredom and make her fearful, the Emerald Herald now gave out lists of missing persons twice a week. More people were vanishing up around Oz. A corn-farmer in Munchkinland, a clan-baron in Gilikin, a troupe of circus performers outside of Traum: the list just went on and on.

And to make matters even worse, Elphaba was nowhere to be found. She never appeared during the day. Once Glinda tried to stay up all night and wait for Elphaba to return. She fell asleep in the East Tower and woke the next morning in her room, a note upon the bed.

_You're sweet, Glinda, but don't wait up for me again._

This made Glinda even more worried. Elphaba was becoming much more distant. She hadn't seen her since that one night when she discovered the dresses - more than two months ago. She started to wonder if Elphaba had really meant it when she kissed her back after that first kiss.

"Oh, Elphie," she sobbed that night, wrapping the covers of her bed around her to keep out the cold. "What's happening to you?"

* * *

><p>Glinda awoke to the prodding of a monkey's hand. She yelped, then apologized when she saw Chistery standing there.<p>

"Any news from Elphie?" she asked.

The monkey shook his head, scribbled something on the chalk-board then handed it to her.

_Monkeys haven't gone out flying in a week. There's evil in the skies of Oz._

This made Glinda even more worried. If something bad was afoot, or a-wing, in Oz, it meant that the broom-riding Elphaba was in imminent danger. The rest of the day she paced the castle halls, looking out with eager, hungry eyes at every window she came across, whether it faced east, south, north or west.

_Oh,_ she thought. _If only Elphie were here..._

Later that evening, a storm was on its way into the West. Angry dark clouds were gathering in the sky and the billowing roar of thunder cracked the evening air. Glinda heard a commotion from one of the walls of the castle. She climbed up the tower and ran across the battlements to where the noise came from.

Elphaba was there, staggering about and shivering. Her broom was in her hand, but her clothes were even more frayed, torn and (she gasped) even singed in places, than usual.

"Oh, Elphie!" she sighed, wrapping her arms around the green woman's thin frame. Had Elphaba gotten thinner than she had known her to be?

She carried her down from the battlements and laid her upon her bed - Glinda's bed, that is. There was no bed in the East Tower: Glinda wondered sometimes where Elphaba would sleep when she was in the Tower or out on business, if she even slept anymore. As she laid the green woman upon the bed, she removed the tall-peaked hat and took a good look at her face for the first time in months.

A subtle yet profound change had come over the woman she loved. Her face was gaunt, the green skin stretched tightly across the bones: with Elphaba and her bony, high-cheek-boned facial structure, it had a most unsettling affect. Like a green skull it was, with bro...no, the eyes weren't brown anymore. One green eyelid creaked open and Glinda could see a red-yellow eye glaring up at her.

Was _this_ what had become of her beloved? What evil had done this to her?

"Glinda?" she sighed. The voice was still the same. For all that her face may have looked different, Glinda was not disgusted or repulsed. This was still the Elphaba Thropp she knew. Even as she looked at the face, she seemed to see some semblance of the woman she knew and loved return into that skull-like caricature.

"Oh, Elphie!" she sobbed, wrapping her arm around Elphaba's shoulder. "What happened?"

She felt the green woman's head turn up, gazing at the ceiling pensively.

"I don't remember." she said at last.

The eyes glanced at her left and saw the little blond reach behind her back and begin to untie the laces that held her bodice in place.

"G-Glinda what are you doing?" she asked.

"I haven't seen you in three months, Elphie!" Glinda said, sounding desirous and wanting. "I want to do monkey business with you."

"What?" Elphaba exclaimed. "Have you been chatting with Chist..." A little pale pink hand fell over her dark-green lips.

"You know what I mean," she sounded even more forceful than typical for Glinda. Getting frustrated with all the knots and laces, she left her bodice loose, hoping that Elphaba would finish the rest, then proceeded to remove Elphaba's clothing. This, however, was much easier. Elphaba's clothes were much simpler, thank Oz.

"No, please, don't." Elphaba softly said. So softly that Glinda didn't pay it any heed. "Please, I almost got killed today. I'm not in the mood."

"Well, I am," Glinda sternly said. "And if I wait around for you to be in the mood, you might be dead before then."

The frayed and fringed black blouse was gone, leaving only the black under-shirt. Glinda's hands did the rest of the work, feeling the rest of Elphaba's body. It hadn't changed, it seemed: still of the same frame that it had been from a distance that night in their dorm-room suite.

"No, Glinda, please..." Elphaba began, but her pleas were cut off by a cry. At first it was nothing more than a sigh, a moan: Glinda kept going. It got louder, Glinda continued her advances.

Suddenly Elphaba cried out, throwing herself from the bed, a hand clutching at her lap as she hit the floor.

Now Glinda realized that something was wrong. Elphaba's pleas might not have been beckons of enticement, but actually pleas to stop.

"Elphie, what's wrong?" she spat out in one breath.

The green woman looked up, a spasm of pain written across her face.

"I-I don't know."

"Well, what _do_ you know?" Glinda asked. "Because it seems that 'I don't know' is all that I can get out of you these days."

Elphaba winced again.

"What is it?" she gasped. "Please, tell me!"

"I need," Elphaba said through clenched teeth. "To change."

She practically waddled out of the room in an awkward stance, leaving Glinda to bounce after her, while trying to restore order to her corset laces. Elphaba threw herself into the bathroom, and closed the door behind her. Glinda paused at the door, raising her hand clenched up in a fist to pound upon it.

A scream echoed from within, and the door flung back open. Elphaba knocked Glinda to the floor, her nails digging into Glinda's shoulders. She could feel Elphaba's heart racing just inches away from her own.

"Elphie, what is it?"

"I'm surrounded by it!" she growled, rising up to her feet. "Can't even get away from it in the desert!"

"Elphie, what are you talking about?"

The green woman paused, then turned around.

"What?" she asked, a clueless expression on her face. "What? What are you talking about?"

"What are _you_ talking about? The desert, something you're surrounded by. What is it?"

"I don't have time for these games!"

"What games?"

"I don't know what you're talking about?"

"Elphie..."

At this, the green-skinned woman looked down at herself, then up at her friend, a look of abject horror on her face.

"Help me." She then collapsed.

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: What do you think?)<strong>

**(Told you I'd explicate if it served the plot. I hope you've been following along with what's been going on, because the plot is about to thicken in the next chapter and another familiar face [or two] will return! -dun dun dun!-)  
><strong>


	8. A Rose with Many Thorns

**(AN: Unlike most depictions of _Wicked_, the 'No Good Deed' moment comes before the fight scene in this story. I'm glad that I've been able to update so much already. I've got an idea of what might happen in the end, but even I don't know wall will _definitely_ happen.)**

* * *

><p><strong>A Rose With Many Thorns<strong>

Glinda was nigh on beside herself. After the horrifying incident of last night, Elphaba had disappeared again. She wasn't in the castle at all, and in her condition, she feared what might happen. If she was getting profound pain at a little wetness, what would happen if she got caught in a rainstorm? The thought of Elphaba being seriously, severely hurt or even dead was too much for her to imagine.

She needed to get out of the walls of the castle. Her situation, plus all the added stress, was making her go nigh insane. Fortunately, the drawbridge was down. Glinda ran outside of the castle, but the open air wasn't much better. Dark clouds still gripped the sky, blotting out the sun from view. Wind was rustling about, and it seemed that a storm would soon be on its way.

She sat down on the barren, sandy floor of the mountain-side. True enough, the Vinkus wasn't a true desert - though there were definitely places that could rightly be called desert - it was arid enough to be considered one. She noticed a tiny yellow flower, a desert rose, gleaming up innocently at her. She looked away, worrying herself into old age over Elphaba (though obviously far far away).

"That won't help."

Glinda gasped. She had heard that voice before, but when she looked around, the person who had originally spoken it before was not there. In fact, nobody else was there, except for her and the flower.

"You're almost as blind as she is!"

This time Glinda saw it. Some of the petals of the yellow flower were moving and the sound was coming out of it.

"Oh my Oz! A flower is talking to me! Or..." She hesitated. "...s-s-should I call you a Flower?"

"You can call me Mombi," the flower said. "Because that's who I am."

A flash and a whiff of some awful smelling smoke and the old witch they had found that night in the cave was standing before her. Well, sitting was the correct term. She looked just as disgusticifying as Glinda had remembered her.

"Wha-Why were you a flower?" a befuddled Glinda asked.

"I've been able to travel quite a ways in my flower disguise," Mombi said. "Nobody would suspect an innocent little rose is actually one of Gilikin's most powerful sorcerers."

"B-B-But I thought..."

"What, that that toady Morrible was the most powerful?" She made a noise. "She never could master that book, and she's not really that great of a weather sorceress. I've been around for centuries, and have seen some secrets that would bring color back to that old cod's face, if you know what I mean."

Mombi laughed a harsh, crow-like cackle. Glinda did not laugh.

"Where's my Elphie?" Glinda demanded.

"Oh, you love her, don't you?" Only a hint of teeny, tiny mockery was in Mombi's voice. "You youngsters, you don't know how lucky you are. In my day, if two women fell in love, they were hanged."

"I'm sorry."

"Ah, doesn't matter. My tastes don't fall to such superficial things as men and women."

"Tell me where Elphie is! What have you done with her?"

"First of all," Mombi said. "Let's go back inside, shall we? A storm's coming, and we'd better not be caught out-doors when all hell breaks loose."

Glinda did not help Mombi to her feet as they made their way back to the castle. She did not like the old woman's sarcastic tone, it was quite mean, especially in her situation when Elphaba's life might hang in the balances this very moment. They passed through the drawbridge.

"Alright, we're in-doors." Glinda said hurriedly. "Now tell me where Elphie is!"

"I don't have her, if that's what you're thinking," Mombi began. "The book has her."

At this, Glinda became especially attentive and a little aggressive in her questioning.

"What book? What do you mean?"

"The Grimmerie, of course! And no," she turned, hand raised, to halt Glinda's next statement. "It's more than just a spell-book. That thing could very well destroy Oz and all of its people!"

Glinda gulped in fear.

"Yeah, that bad, actually."

"What do you know about the Grimmerie?"

"Well," Mombi continued. "No one can honestly say that they know everything about it, because the book constantly changes from owner to owner. But I've had it the longest and I've made a few correct guesses about what its motives are."

"You speak of it like it's a living thing."

"In a way, dearie, it is. Have a seat." Glinda didn't like being ordered to sit down in a place that had become to her, over the past several months, like her own home. She sat down nonetheless.

"The Grimmerie is not from this world," Mombi began. "It was spirited to this world near the end of the Mage Wars." At Glinda's quizzical expression, she waved her questions aside. "Some petty squabbling, typical of that world, the last war fought by magic. There were no more sorcerers or magicians in this world after the dust settled from this war.

"It was spirited here to be protected, and to protect that world from the evil that lurks inside the pages of that book. A parasite, a leech, one that would devour the world if given the chance. This presence has a name by which it calls itself: Yackle."

Glinda gasped. The name sounded so uncouth and vulgar, yet it seemed like some hideous monster, some phantom out of child nightmares that disappeared in the light of day. Only this monster wasn't bound by the darkness...

"How do you know this?" Glinda asked.

"I possessed the book, I said," she continued. "That's not entirely correct. It possessed me, or rather Yackle did. She lives inside the pages of that book, her evil contained, if only for the now. But for those who carry the book and read therefrom, a change comes over them. Yackle starts to take over, and she hates all things beautiful and delicate, because she was born old and therefore feels that, if she wasn't allowed to be beautiful, nothing else should be."

"That's so mean!" Glinda stated.

"You think that's bad?" Mombi asked. "It gets worse. Your friend, who I've rightly guessed has the Grimmerie, is lost to it. Yackle will take over her body, devouring what goodness and quality that green woman has, until she's nothing more than a dried, dead shell. Of course, she won't kill her outright, not until she's outlived her usefulness."

"And water?"

"Yackle hates water," Mombi said. "It is pure, cleansing, wholesome: everything she is not. But it comes at a dangerous price, though. If Yackle has possessed your friend, she will start to take on the features of Yackle, which means that a spring rain would kill her."

"Oh no!" Glinda sighed. "Oh, poor Elphie! She-she doesn't deserve this!"

"Does she, now?"

"Well, she doesn't! She's a good person!"

"Good?" Mombi laughed. "Your friend is as far from good as that cod-faced toady and her impotent puppet!"

"You take that back!"

"Haven't you noticed it yet? Her whole plan, her 'scheme' for the welfare of Oz, it had nothing to do with the Animals, it was all about herself."

"How dare you!"

"Oh, no, pretty, not I." Before Glinda's eyes, the old figure of Mombi turned into one more familiar.

"'All the wrongs have to be righted,'" Mombi-Elphaba said. "'All the hurts have to be healed. This whole fear of change, of people who are different, that's part of the Wizard's regime.'"

"She only meant to help the Animals!" She was angry now at what Mombi was insinuating.

"Oh really?" the sarcastic voice of Mombi queried from out of the dark-green lips that Glinda kissed. Then it changed, and she was saying something in a sing-song voice.

_For I swear, someday, there'll be _  
><em>A celebration throughout Oz <em>  
><em>That's all to do with me!<em>

Glinda gasped.

"We all have 'evil' inside of us," Mombi said, reverting back to her original form. "It's whether we act upon that evil that makes us good or wicked. Your friend wanted nothing more than attention, to have people look at her for more than her skin color. That was why she wanted to change the world, not for the Animals. She championed their cause so she could make a world where she was accepted and loved, despite her skin color. She used the Animals for her own selfish ends!"

"No!" Glinda put her hands over her ears. "It's not true!"

"Already she had gone far down that path," Mombi said, removing Glinda's hands from over her ears. "Before Morrible gave the book to her. Yackle only attaches herself onto those who bend their will towards the easy, selfish path...the path of evil. For they have nothing to lose and all to gain by giving themselves to her."

"And-And," Glinda was sobbing. "And what makes you so high and mighty that you get to be the voice of right and wrong? Are you a good witch or a bad witch?"

"Oh, I'm bad enough," Mombi chuckled.

"Then what makes you better than Elphie?"

"I _admit_ that I'm evil."

"Then why are you helping me?" Glinda cried, falling upon Mombi and striking her with her little fists. But she was breaking down in tears, and her blows did not even make Mombi flinch. Silence followed, broken only by Glinda's sobs.

"I know what she's like," Mombi said at last. "I've had her inside me..."

Glinda backed away in fear.

"Oh, please!" Mombi scoffed. "Did you honestly think that a sorceress, skilled in the deceptive art of disguise, would _choose_ to cavort around as an old woman? That parasite Yackle did this to me!" She indicated to her face and her body.

"But more than that," she continued. "I saw into her mind, even as she was trying to take my body. She is the void inside us all that cannot be filled no matter how hard we try. She is hunger unrestrained. She is a consuming fire that will burn the whole world. This is much bigger than you and I, bigger than your friend, bigger than the difference between good and evil: this is about existence as we know it."

"What must I do?" Glinda sobbed.

"You know the answer," Mombi said. "The question is, can you do it?"

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: Might be bending canon a little, but I thought it made for a good premise, to have Yackle play the villain and Mombi [a character from the Oz-series, who has also appeared in the <em>Wicked<em>-series, and therefore is semi-canonical] portray an anti-heroic role.)**

**(Big things are going to start happen, so don't go anywhere!)**


	9. Don't Hit Me

**(Loads of funny stuff here, but something [or someone] happens that is crucial to the progression of the plot.)**

* * *

><p><strong>Don't Hit Me<strong>

Jellia Jamb woke in the middle of the night because she heard a noise at her window. Warily, she crept across the room and pushed the window open a tiny crack. Something jumped inside and almost smothered her with a hand trying to keep her from crying out.

"Shh!" Glinda said. "Don't make a sound!"

She shook her head, then the hand was removed. It was indeed Glinda, back in the Emerald City and alive, just as she knew it was so.

"Miss Glinda!" Jellia whispered. "I'm so glad to see you! We-the people, they'd almost given all hope of ever discoverating you again. Some said that you were kidnapped or worse!"

"Jelly, listen to me," Glinda returned. "I don't have much time. I need to get into the Throne Room."

"But I'm not allowed in the Throne Room!"

"Shh! Listen, Jelly, somebody's going to get hurt if I don't get into the Throne Room and get the bubble machine the Wizard made for me."

The little girl groaned.

"I'm gonna get fired for this!" she muttered, then turned back to Glinda. "This way!"

* * *

><p>The little girl led Glinda down the empty halls of the Emerald Palace, towards the center room, the Throne Room. All the while Glinda was reminded of that time three years and almost seven months ago when Elphaba had dragged her through these halls on their way into the attic.<p>

_Oh no,_ she mused. _I'm becoming like Elphie. Whatever will Jelly think if I don't tell her what's going on? No, but I can't! She might believe the lies they've been saying about her. No, I can't tell her, not until the time is right._

They passed through the archway and were now in the huge domed palace of the Wizard. Glinda's heart was racing beneath her chest: what would happen next? It seemed so outrageously impossible for this plan to actually work, but so far they hadn't encountered any resistance.

There was the bubble machine, lying on its side on the far wall, next to the giant throne. It wasn't even covered. This was too easy!

"There it is!" Jellia pointed.

"Thanks, Jelly!" Glinda whispered. "Now you better make yourself scarce before something happens."

Suddenly, Glinda became aware of high-heels clacking loudly against the emerald floor. A slow, menacing pounding they made, like the tolls of a bell that ticked away the time left to live.

"What was that?" Jellia whispered, even lower than before, fear clutching at every syllable.

A laugh, reveling in its triumph, all sickly-sweetness gone with the wind, echoed through the Throne Room.

"I always knew you didn't have what it takes, dearie."

Glinda's blood ran cold at the sound of that voice, that all too familiar voice. She cursed the day she ever listened to a single lie that uttered from its mouth.

"**GUARDS! SHE'S HERE!**"

She leaped into the bubble machine, hoping that the magical soap-suds were still in place. After all, they hadn't been moved when she last saw them.

Several of the Gale Force guards entered the room, and they grabbed Jellia Jamb. She was screaming for them to let go. This was all very familiar.

"Let Jelly go!" Glinda screamed, suddenly feeling quite bold and daring, despite her usual demeanor. "She has _nothing_ to do with this! I'm the one you want! It's me!"

"Glinda?" Jellia asked with disbelief.

Glinda's hand gripped the lever behind her, the one she had seen the Wizard pull that started the bubble machine. Her heart was racing. That moment she had rejected in the attic those many years ago, she was now about to make up.

"I'm coming, Elphie!" she cried out, then pulled the lever down with both hands.

The bubble machine did not move.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Madam Morrible shouted at the guards. "Get her before she gets away!"

Glinda pulled on the lever, trying to make sure it was all the way down.

_Oh, Elphie made this look much easier!_ she thought.

Still nothing. The guards were getting closer, and Glinda was getting frantic.

"Come on, you worthless hunk of junk!" she shouted at the bubble machine, kicking at it with her heeled shoe.

It took off with a lurch, throwing her to the ground with a small exclamation of "Oh Shiz!" The ceiling gave way around her as she crashed through, then another and another and soon she found herself in the night air again.

It was even darker by reason of the storm-clouds. This was no natural storm, it seemed. There was lightning, there was thunder, there were clouds and there was heavy wind, but there was no rain.

In the flash of a bolt of lightning, she saw a black speck far in the east go down, as if struck by the lightning, or falling to its death.

_Oh no! Please, don't let that be Elphie!_

"Um," she stood up, looking at the bubble machine. "Go!" She waved her arms out towards the east. The bubble machine remained floating in place. "That way! Fetch! Mush! Uh, fly! Flee! Floo! Flow! Flum! Uh, onward! Forth! Get thee hence! Uh, uh, the power of Lurline compels...oh, no, that's not right." She was quickly becoming frustrated with this infernal bubble machine. "Uh, oh, come on, you stupid machine! Go thataway!"

With a lurch, the bubble machine took off into the east. The Madeleines passed quickly underneath her as the bubble was flying at top speed. If the situation had been lighter, Glinda would have been shouting "Whee!" at the top of her lungs.

Unfortunately, there were still a few kinks in the Wizard's design for this bubble machine. And the bubble fluid was now sputtering empty. The machine started to lurch downward and Glinda saw the tops of corn-stalks growing closer and closer.

Thinking fast, she pushed herself out of the bubble and landed face-first in the earth, knobby corn-ears digging into her at odd spots. Sleep, exhaustion and nerves finally overcame her and she knew no more.

* * *

><p>When morning came at last, Glinda remembered with a rush that she had seen something fall out of the sky. It might be Elphaba. She could be anywhere! She pushed herself up to her feet and ran through the corn-stalks, finding herself on the outskirts of a small Munchkin town - perhaps a little unfair, since this was the capital of Munchkinland, Center Munch.<p>

Nobody was about, which made little sense. There were usually Munchkins (and the taller Munchkinlanders) about pretty much everywhere in every town in the East. Yet this one was strangely quiet, deserted. Glinda noticed, a little ways into town, a structure that clearly did not belong there. It was gray, not blue, a slanted roof rather than a dome, and weathered, as if the winds of a million sand-storms had blown against it, yet the little structure would not fall. A weather-vane in the shape of a rooster sat haphazardly atop this gray shack, and the whole think looked like someone quite literally just dropped it here.

"Well, I'll be!" a voice that was not Glinda's exclaimed.

She turned around and saw the last person she had expected to see standing there, gaping at the house.

"Oh, don't mind me," Fiyero said with offense. "I saw the storm and followed it out here."

"I don't believe," Glinda said. "We have anything further to say to one another."

"Oh, really?" he asked. "Because I think we do."

"I think we don't."

"Oh, I think we do."

"Since when have you started thinking?"

"Since when did you become a Parrot?"

"Hey!" a Parrot squawked from her nest up in the trees. "I resent that remark! We don't always mimic people, you know."

"Sorry, Mr. Parrot!" Glinda called up to the tree.

"It's Mrs., if you don't mind!"

"Sorry!" She turned back to Fiyero. He was in his Gale Force captain garb, a musket leaning against a Munchkin house.

"So what?" She asked. "You've come to arrest me?"

"No, I came for the storm," he said. "You know, cyclones don't just appear out of the blue, you know."

"Do you think someone planned this to happen?"

"Well, what do _you_ think? Oh, of course!" he slapped his forehead. "I forgot! You're the selfish little rich-girl who doesn't think about anyone else but herself, aren't you?"

Glinda was now seething. She didn't have time for this, she knew. But Fiyero was asking for it.

"Now you wait just a clock tick!" she returned, teeth clenched. "I know it's difficult for that empty head of yours to comprehend that not every girl in the world is swooning at your feet in love with you, but it's happened! It's real! And you can point that musket around all you want, you can't change it! She never belonged to you! She doesn't love you, and she _never_ did! She loves **_me!_**"

What happened next, Glinda never would have seen coming. One second she was standing in front of Fiyero, glaring at him angrily. The next, she was bent down over the grass, blood coming out of her nose.

"Did you just hit me?" she asked in disbelief.

"Uh, hey, listen," Fiyero nervously began. "I-I didn't mean to. I guess I just got carried away and accidentally..."

"You don't hit a girl, Fiyero Tiggular!" she screeched at him.

"What about equal treatment?" he returned.

"If that's the way you want it!" she slapped him as hard as she could across his face.

"Ow!" they both said.

Just then, a group of Gale Force shock troopers charged through the corn-field.

"Halt in the name of the Wizard!" the soldiers said. They dragged Glinda away, keeping her in their arms.

"Oh, let go of me, you big bullies!"

"Sorry it took us so long to get here, sir." the lieutenant said to Fiyero.

"What, what is this?" Glinda asked. "You-You mean you 'planned' for this to happen?"

"Wizard's orders," the lieutenant said. "We were told to stake this place out after the storm. He said the Witch of the West might show up if the other one was in danger."

"Fiyero, how could you?"

Before Fiyero could make another sound, there was a mad cackling heard from over-head.

"Look, up in the sky! There she is!" one soldier shouted, pointing up into the sky.

"Steady, the lot of you!"

A sudden explosion of cloud and black smoke erupted around Fiyero and Glinda. To Glinda's surprise and slight alarm, the guards had vanished. Suddenly, in the middle of the ring of smoke, a tall pillar of smoke erupted. When it died down, Glinda almost gave a cry of joy. Standing there was a black-clad figure, wearing a tall-peaked hat, a long black cloak and holding a broomstick in her green hand.

But when the face turned around, Glinda was hard-pressed to suppress a cry of disgust. What had once been the sharp yet lovely face of the woman she loved had been horribly deformed and distorted. A mean caricature it was now, with leprous growth making uneven green bumps all over her face and nose. Two red-yellow eyes stared out from beneath the rim of the hat, and Glinda's heart disappeared into her stomach.

_Oh, Elphie,_ she thought. _What have you done?_

* * *

><p><strong>(AN:)**


	10. A Good Way to Die

**(AN: And now...the conclusion!)**

* * *

><p><strong>A Good Way to Die<strong>

"Get back, you!" the monster growled, pointing a finger in Fiyero's direction. "She's mine!"

"E-Elphie?" Glinda gasped, barely audible over the din of the rushing smoke all around them.

"Elphaba Thropp is dead," the being that inhabited Elphaba's body screeched. Even the voice was a cruel mockery of the melodious notes of her beloved Elphaba. Glinda threw her hands up over her mouth.

"Oh, no!" she sobbed. "No, no, no! It's not true!"

The creature made a mockery of Glinda's crying and imitated her voice, which made Glinda feel sick inside.

"I can see why she liked you, though," the creature said, walking closer to the grieving Glinda. "You're a pretty little thing, poppet."

"Who are you," Fiyero interjected, pointing the musket at the green face. "And what have you done with Elphaba?"

"Who am I?" the thing growled. "I am the Void. In me, all life dies. That is what's become of your precious green cry-baby." She rolled her red-yellow eyes.

"She was weak," it continued. "Always thinking only of herself. I used that to my purposes, and now..." She laughed aloud the mad cackle of one gone mad.

"Now I am free! And soon the whole world will pay for what it's done to me."

"What has the world done to you?" Fiyero asked.

"Everything!" it growled. "I didn't ask to be born old, to never be allowed to love, never be allowed to enjoy the fruits of youth! But I was born old, old and hungry. The world did this to me and now the world will pay for what it's done."

"Think about Elphaba!"

"Why should I? She's part of the world, she's as much to blame as any of you!"

Just then, Glinda heard some noises about. Casting her eyes behind her, she saw the Gale Force guards, trying to walk blindly through the haze of smoke. Suddenly, fire-balls shot out and incinerated them on the spot.

"Stop!" Glinda screamed. "Stop it right now!"

"Or what?" mocked the monster. "You'll cry again?" As she knelt down, speaking in mockery as if to a child, Glinda saw the bladder of a heavy book bag slide down from off her shoulder.

That's it, she thought. It's in there! All I have to do is get it out of there and away from her! But I can't let Fiyero know, not without her finding out.

"What?" the thing shouted, walking towards Glinda, mistaking her staring for gawking. "Are you staring at something?"

"Hey!" Fiyero pointed his musket at the green thing. "Leave her alone!"

That was all the time Glinda needed. She reached up and grabbed the book bag with both hands, egaer to wrench it out of the green thing's grasp and have her Elphie back.

* * *

><p>The moment her hands touched the bag, suddenly her whole world started spinning around and everything was violet and silver.<p>

"Mmmm," a voice spoke, yet Glinda could see no speaker. "So young, so fair...and so filled with mischief."

"Who are you?" Glinda asked.

"Yackle!" the voice echoed into a thousand mocking voices, until Glinda wished she would never heard the name 'Yackle' ever again.

"Stop! What do you want?"

"Look at me!"

Glinda looked around, but didn't see anything, just violet walls and silver lines that flowed in every which way. Then it appeared, like a great gaping hole leading down into...nothing.

But something did come up out of that hole, slowly at first, like the dawn's first light. It rapidly grew larger and clearer, until it was no longer a white pin-prick of light, but a little something clothed in white. It was with horror that Glinda recognized that little shallow biddy clad in white, with her bouncing blond curls and pompous smile.

It was herself.

"Listen to me, Glinda," the voice said, but it now spoke with her own voice. "You've been running from me your whole life, ever since you met that green busy-body. You don't have to run anymore. I am you, and as long as you live, I will always be there, to lead you down the right path."

"Right?" Glinda asked her former self. "You...we...I cared only about myself."

"Is there anything greater?" the younger Glinda, Galinda, asked with a smile.

"Sorry," Glinda said. "But no thanks. I can see through that, Yackle. I'm not as easy to fool as I may have been. You're trying to trick me, you only want for yourself."

"Do I, now?" her past self sneared. Suddenly, behind her, she saw, two other figures of herself. One was but a child, lying on the ground as if asleep. Her clothes were torn and she was covered in blood. The other one looked even worse: thin and emaciated, she looked nothing like the Glinda Upland that she knew. But Glinda recognized it, by yellow dress and shoes, by the green-shaded glasses, cracked and dirtied, hanging off her nose, she knew who it was.

"This is what would have happened to you if it wasn't for me!" Galinda shouted, pointing at the two figures behind her.

Suddenly, another thought came into Glinda's mind, a new thought. As if by magic, it materialized around her. First there was a throng of rich, upper-class aristocrats millying idly about in a great rich palace. They were all discussing the same thing, with various level of disgust, some of them even planning subterfuge against it. In one corner, all alone and weeping into her arm, was a figure that Glinda recognized. But she did not look upon it with pity, nor disgust, she wasn't even looking at.

She was looking at Galinda.

"What is this?" the younger self asked.

"This is what would have happened," Glinda retorted. "If I listened to you. I would be alone, loved only on the surface, for what I have to offer. I wouldn't have a friend in the world."

"The price of fame." Galinda sneared.

Secondly, another image appeared. A sad creature there was, hideous and deformed beyond recognition. All around there was flame and smoke, ash and ruin. The creature looked all about, then looked down at its own hands. Filthy they were, with years of untold and uncounted grime piled up beneath broken, cracked and diseased finger-nails. Warts and other leprous growths adorned the fingers like macabre jewels upon rings of flesh.

Glinda covered her face as the creature started to eat its own hand.

"What, you think this scares me?" Galinda mocked, indicating to all around her. "If this is what it takes, then so be it. So be it, Upland!"

"No!" Glinda finally said, looking up at her younger self. Only no more was the young Galinda there, but the same deformed creature that was just now slavering the blood off the stump of its arm.

"You don't know, do you?" she said at last. "You only think about yourself. You'll never know love, never know family, never have any friend, never feel what it's like to risk everything..."

The hideous face twisted in anger, its red-yellow eyes boiling over with rage. Meanwhile, the other mongrel had reduced itself to a bloody stump, and was weeping and crying. Whether in pain, or because it had nothing more to eat to satisfy its ending hunger, Glinda could not guess.

Suddenly, Glinda saw something painfully familiar in the eyes of the first mongrel, the one that was partially whole.

Its eyes flashed from reddish yellow to brown.

"Glinda!" the thing howled. "Please, Glinda! Take me with you!"

"Elphie?" she breathed in disbelief.

Strong hands seized Glinda on the shoulder, and for a moment, she was a conduit of the evil energy. She felt the empty hole inside of her, yearning, begging, hungering for something, anything that might fill that void: gold, silver, friends, money, fame, popularity, food, flesh, attention..._murder..._

* * *

><p>As quickly as it had appeared, the evil feelings were gone. Glinda was now lying on top of Fiyero, both of his arms still clutching to her shoulders. They felt like two branding irons, burning their way into her flesh.<p>

"Mombi didn't tell you, did she?" that hideous, mocking voice laughed. She looked up and saw that she was once again in the world that she had once known - the black clouds of smoke and everything. The green-skinned monster was still lurching over her.

"Tell me what?" Glinda asked. There was no fear in her voice anymore, not even anger.

"I visit those who want me," the thing said greedily. "Those who don't...I kill."

"Stop!"

They all stopped, even the green monster.

"Fiyero, have you misplaced your mind?" Glinda shouted above the roar of the rushing black smoke. There he was, musket forsaken, eyes turned toward the green monster.

"She's still there, isn't she?" he said, but he was not speaking to Glinda.

"No!" the monster said. "I told you, she's dead."

"I don't believe you," he returned. "Not Elphaba, she's a fighter."

"Some fight she put up, if I'm the one in control now!"

"I don't think you are!"

"You don't think, period!"

"Yes I do!" he proudly exclaimed. "I-I've thought alot about many things."

"Fiyero, what are you doing?" Glinda spat out in one breath.

"You're in there, Elphaba." Fiyero said to the monster. "I know you are. I..." He held up his hands, ugly red and black burn-scars upon them. "I felt your presence."

"Stay where you are!" the green thing held up a hand, a tiny ball of fire appearing.

"And I know what you are!" he pointed to the creature. "Don't you see? It's over. You've lost!"

"Never! I do not lose! I-I cannot lose, I..."

Before any of them could make a move, Fiyero closed the distance, took the green creature in his arms and kissed her. The smoke began to gather around them, and every so often, bright flashes of light appeared from out of the darkness, and screams were heard as well. Glinda covered her ears, trying hard not to cry. Now hideous faces and grotesque, distorted masks were appearing from out of the darkness. Black bile started flying out of the vortex of darkness and wind.

All was suddenly silent. Cautiously, Glinda removed her hands from over her ears and opened her eyes. The smoke was gone, the guards were gone. Two other figures remained laying upon the ground outside of Center Munch.

Glinda walked over and could now see them clearly. The green thing lay on the earth, its face obscured by raven black hair. With trembling hands she reached up to caress the face beneath the hair.

"Oh, Elphie!" she wept. It didn't matter that, beneath that hair, lay a face so horribly disfigured and diseased that it would put Glinda at risk of infection by touching it. She didn't care.

Just then, she felt something breathe against her fingers. Her heart was racing, and she feared the worst. It was still alive. Could nothing kill this monster?

One green hand reached up and pulled the hair out of the face. Glinda did not cease crying when she saw the face...

But they were not tears of sadness, or of despair. They were tears of joy.

Green eyelids slowly creaked open. Two brown eyes, flecked with gray, opened up to gaze upon the world. Here was the face that Glinda had not rightly seen since that day in the Wizard's throne room.

"Elphie!" she exclaimed. With both hands, she kissed the dark-green lips, forgetting what had happened that one night at Kiamo Ko. To her surprise, the green woman did not recoil or cry out in pain.

A green hand reached up and grabbed Glinda's head from the rear.

"Glinda," those beautiful brown eyes swam with tears as the voice spoke. "Glinda..."

"Yes, Elphie?"

There was a moment of silence, as not a single tear fell down upon that emerald cheek. Glinda could not stop crying and she wanted to kiss her again, but the hand held her hair back in a soft but firm grip.

"What have I done?"

* * *

><p>"It's not your fault, Elphie!" Glinda, with black mascara lines running down her cheeks, said to Elphaba for what felt like the nineteen hundredth time.<p>

"You don't have to lie to me," Elphaba shook her head. "I let it happen. I wanted to be loved to be accepted, I was ready to do anything and I...I let that _thing_ take control of me, and I put you all at risk." She shook her head again, a mirthless smile on her face.

"I always thought," she continued, looking down at the body. "That he'd come to a different end. Die fast, just as he'd lived fast."

Glinda was silent, looking on at Fiyero's body. He was dead now, and no spell could bring back the dead, even if there was a page in the Grimmerie called _To Call the Lost_ _Forward_. None of them wanted to touch the Grimmerie, not after what had happened.

What _had_ happened?

"I know what he felt," Glinda said, indicating to Fiyero. "He pulled me away from the Grimmerie, his hands..." She indicated to her shoulders, where red welts had appeared. Galinda would be wailing about how her perfect skin was ruined by these awful burns. Glinda was too tired to give a damn.

"When he touched me," she said. "I could see inside his mind, you know, like how Ya...how _it_ could see inside me when I touched the Grimmerie."

"That's how it started with me," Elphaba said. "It was a very fool-hardy thing to do, Glinda, putting yourself at risk like that. I could never live with myself if I lost you too."

"And he saw inside _its_ mind as well," Glinda continued. "He believed that you were there, and he chose to sacrifice himself this way because..." She bit her lip, not wanting to admit it.

"What?"

"Because he loved you!" she stated in tears.

"Oh, don't cry, Glinda." Elphaba put her arm around Glinda's shoulders.

"But it's my fault," she said. "I stole you from him."

"Hey, listen," Elphaba said. "You didn't steal me from him. You told me how you felt, and I accepted it." She kissed Glinda back. "I'm more than happy to spend a lifetime with you, dear."

"But, but Fiyero?"

"Of all the possible fates," Elphaba said, looking down at Fiyero's body. "This one was the noblest and best: to give his life for the ones he loved."

"'Ones?'" Glinda queried.

"Yes, ones."

* * *

><p>They now stood on the edge of the town, with Glinda dragging the book bag on the ground behind them. Elphaba insisted that she could carry it, but Glinda said that she was too weak and should not be carrying 'that horrendible book'. Once they were out of the city, Glinda threw the book bag down and turned to Elphaba.<p>

"We have to destroy it." she said.

"Wait, why?" Elphaba asked.

Glinda slapped Elphaba across the face.

"Why?" she shouted. "Did you seriously ask me why? After seven months of scary things happening, of-of me running all over Oz, getting filthy beyond recognition, almost getting thrown into the Southstairs, and you losing your soul, you _really_ are going to ask me why..."

"Okay, I understand!" Elphaba apologized. "But...but what about the war? I mean the Wizard's still at large, and the Animals..."

"Don't you understand?" Glinda returned. "You don't need this book! Remember that first day at Shiz?"

"How can I forget!"

"You didn't have the book then," Glinda said. "And what about the attic?"

"I used the book to enchant the broom."

"But it didn't make you fly, _you_ did. You've always had the magic inside of you, Elphie. You didn't need some book to tell you how to use what you already had."

"You think?" Elphaba smiled.

Glinda leaned up on the tips of her toes and kissed Elphaba. "I _know_."

Elphaba then looked at the Grimmerie, lying so innocently upon the earth. Yet she knew, as Mombi knew, as Madam Morrible knew and now as Glinda knew, that innocent had nothing to do with what there was within that book.

She held out her hand, and a ball of fire shot out at the book. A tall spout of flame shot up from where the book caught fire. It seemed like such a simple end for something so powerful, so threatening.

Elphaba and Glinda then hopped aboard the former's broom-stick, and they shot off into the western sky, with the hope that, if Elphaba had power without that damn spell-book, then just maybe there was hope for the Animals still, maybe, just maybe...

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: Is it the end? Well, it has to be, right? There's nothing more that can be done or said, is there?)<strong>


	11. Epilogue

**(AN: Or is it?)**

* * *

><p><strong>Epilogue<strong>

"Spread out!" Captain Cherrystone said. "The others've got to be here."

A second battalion of the Gale Force had been dispatched to Center Munch when the first one hadn't reported back to the Emerald City. They were now scouring the town, looking under every nook and cranny. Hoping to find some sign of the guards.

"What would you rather," a blond-haired Gilikin Gale Forcer said to his brunette companion. "That we find 'em and the Captain gives 'em what for, or that they deserted and we came all the way out here for nothing?"

"I'd rather be back at the City," the other returned. "There aren't any witches there, except the Wizard, and he's on our side."

"Wryn, Bon Cavalish, quiet down over there!" Captain Cherrystone ordered.

The blond one made a rude gesture behind the captain's back, then went on about his duties.

Suddenly, he came to a stop. A circle of burned and blackened grass there was a little ways out of the town. It looked like someone had set a fire here, but there were no tracks leading away.

His eyes were drawn to what sat upon the black circle, completely unscathed. It must have been put there after the fire died, Bon Cavalish thought. No ordinary book could survive a fire, surely. Making sure the captain wasn't looking, he set his musket down and pried open one of the pages. A violet light shone up from out of the pages.

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: And <em>that<em> is quite enough.)**

**(Yes, there is a cameo from a character from the books. Imo, he may exist in musical-verse but who knows, he might actually be [spoilers deleted]. I thought it fit well, the ending.)**

******(Any questions on what I've done so far? Review or send me a PM. I'll be more than happy to answer them. [sigh], now I can get back to my [many] other stories.)**


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